


v-^' 



**v< 























> ♦ 



^o•'^i^^^*^' '^z-'.^^'v^' v^^^^V** "^V 

"""o /\c)^/\ ^^/^^> /V-^%^"^ 








5* 









.O^vi--" 




^ ■»? . 


















t f « 






V-.** ^0 





^^^ ^\ % 







^^ » 
















. 




It-^ 






^giy 


k- 


-1\ 






m-' '11 


W f 


ft 






■1 « 'i^ 


Jl T 


1^ 






K^ p 


1*'^ 




W^^^ 






_^^ 


^^^ J 


S^e^fe^"^'' 




"wiB 


^^^^»^lH 


i^^y 


WW'V' *■*'- 




t2^§| 


■'•^'.'mM 


^HKlp^^ wl 


itjl^'i 




;m9|^3|> 


mmiX W^ 


^M 


^1> 




^^K^ 


W'%f" 


^^ 


^^1 


1^: 




•^Hj 






^ 


fe. 










^^ 


> ;ff!^' ■ 


^■■pp 


MT^ 


-" Tc^ 


c^^m 




^'?-:^'i.t 






%' 




<»». -K 


^^^^^S^^^^Esl^H^H 





ALL THE WAY: being 

THE COLLECTED POEMS 

OF AMELIA WOODWARD TRUESDELL 



SAN FRANCISCO 

A. M. ROBERTSON 
1913 



Copyright, 1913, 
BY Benjamin P. Kurtz 






Printed by 

Taylor. Nash & Taylor 

San Francisco 



.©C!,A357777 



[iii] 

Contents 

Page 

In Memoriam '^^^ 

The Soul's Rubaiyat — 

The Soul's Rubaiyat, Part 1 3 

The Soul's Rubaiyat, Part II H 

Songs by the Way — 

The Procession of the Dumb 21 

94- 

At Pompeii ^^ 

Sonnet ^^ 

Palestine ^^ 

The Aspen 27 

God of the Human Heart 28 

The Bronze Buddha 29 

The Song of To-day 30 

A Nubian Lion 31 

Sonnet 33 

The Song of a Christian Sojourner in America in the 

Twentieth Century 34 

Patmos 35 

To ''H. H." 36 

On Presentation of a Loving Cup to the Former Regent, 

Mrs. Ashburner 37 

In Memoriam 38 

In Her Studio 39 

To a Friendly Critic 40 

Heart of a Rose — Heart of a Man 41 

Sent With Regrets 42 

A Choice 43 

Grievance 44 

The Soul of a Kiss 45 

''Men Kiss and Ride Away" 46 

The Child in the Heart 47 

''Love May Not Sing Again" 48 

If Love Were All 49 

Love Is Dead ^^ 



iv] 



Songs by the Way — Continued. Page 

Dead Love 51 

Truth 52 

Truth 53 

Vita Brevis 54 

Love's Divination 55 

De Profundis 56 

The Gift 57 

Sleep 58 

Peace 59 

The " Eeproaches* ' .... 60 

Easter 61 

The Call 62 

Transition 63 

Stabat Mater 64 

A Good Friday Devotion 66 

The Mater Pia 67 

The First Christmas 68 

Love Is Saved 69 

Farther Shores . . 70 

In Bondage 71 

The Waiting Note 72 

A Rustic Bridge 73 

Vespers . . 74 

L 'Envoi 75 

Songs op the Pacific — 

California's Hymn 79 

The California Eschscholtzia 80 

A Stanford Hymn 81 

A Consecration for a Non-Sectarian Church ... 82 

The Song of the Colorado River 83 

The Spirit of the Desert 84 

San Francisco Bay 85 

La Casa Grande . . 86 

The Pacific 87 



Songs of the Pacific — Continued. Page 

The Yukon's Song of the Gold 88 

The Malamute Dog of Alaska 90 

On the Spanish Missions in California — 

Proem 93 

San Diego 94 

San Luis Eey de Francia 101 

Pala 106 

San Juan Capistrano 109 

San Gabriel Arcangel Ill 

San Bernardino 117 

San Fernando Eey de Espana 118 

The Christ of San Buena Ventura 120 

Santa Barbara 122 

Santa Ynez 126 

San Luis Obispo de Tolosa 131 

San Miguel Arcangel 134 

San Carlos del Carmelo 135 

Santa Cruz 141 

The Last Sermon of Fray Junipero Serra .... 143 

Francisca Reina, or Songs and Ballads of the 
Great Fire in San Francisco, April, 1906 — 

Francisca Eeina 149 

Francisca Dolorosa 151 

Francisca Madre 155 

Francisca 's Thanksgiving 157 

How We Went Out 159 

Francisca Diligente 166 

The Simple Life — on Sidewalks 168 

The Simple Life — in Tents 171 

The Simple Life — in Clubs 172 

The Eeason Why 175 

Francisca Gloriosa 177 



VI 



Tunes of War — Page 

The Salute of the ''Immortality'' 181 

Dewey in Waiting 184 

Decoration Day . 185 

Espaiia Dolorosa 186 

' ' Kemembered " 188 

Lexington Day, 1905 189 

The Glory of ''The White Man's Burden" .... 192 

Victoria Eegina 194 

Labor, the Prophet 195 

The Spirit to the Spoilers 196 

The Jongleur's Pranks — 

Yankee Doodle Up to Date 199 

Unc' Eastus to Marse Dewey 203 

The Lady Eeconciled 205 

An Old Bachelor 206 

A Spinster 207 

My Soul and I 208 

A Grizzly in the Zoo 210 

A Bilious Day 211 

Triolet 212 

Eondeau 213 

Why? 214 

The Discarded Lover 215 

The Mess of It 216 

Progressive Love 217 

The Call of Science 218 

Psychology Five 220 

To College Girls 221 

A Pre-Adamite on Evolution 223 

Concerning Hoes 227 



[ vii ] 

In Memoriam 

Amelia Woodward Truesdell, without being by pro- 
fession a poet, was yet so stirred by an imaginative sense 
of the experiences that during a busy life came to her 
no otherwise than they come to most of us, that she 
naturally spoke of them in the heightened rhythms that 
are poetry. She was vitally enough endowed to see the 
things that happened to her in their general, human 
significance; an unusually busy and practical concern 
with material affairs never darkened that vision. 

And when in the course of those happenings there 
came to her such bereavements as come upon countless 
millions of wives and mothers, this power of seeing the 
general and the human in her own particular experi- 
ence was at once a keener pain and a vicarious comfort; 
for that sight, or insight, became thus a Vision. 

Those who have suffered will know the Visions in 
this book when they come upon them among the poems 
called Songs hy the Way. 

"When, moreover, in the course of her life she also 
had to make those readjustments between the outworn 
faiths of one's parents and one's own youth on the one 
hand, and the new ideas, on the other, of one's maturity, 
which all thinking people must make in every age, she 
made them so vitally and conceived them so strongly 
that in them, too, she saw a general human meaning. 
Again she was stirred by an imaginative sense of not 
uncommon problems; and that, too, was poetry, — 
Eubdiydt of the Soul, to use her own words. 

Then there were the little pleasures of life, and the 
romantic places visited, and the friendships made, and 
the lost causes espoused. These, also, were viewed with 
that insight that had become habitual. Thus every- 
thing, with her, tended to transformation. 



[ viii ] 



The poems called Francisca Reina were written not 
for an anthology, but to comfort and cheer an army of 
men and women, she one of them, who had been made 
homeless by the unparalleled disaster that prostrated 
San Francisco in April of 1906. In a practical, human- 
itarian way, especially in connection with the Red Cross 
Society, Mrs. Truesdell was so intimately engaged at 
that time that she had no leisure to polish verses upon 
the disaster. That was her way in a great and un- 
common calamity. The songs she did sing then, for 
she could not help singing, came hurried and breath- 
less, — cheering many in the midst of the awful dust 
and ruins of a great city. The songs were never 
changed or overmuch corrected. But those who were 
there will turn here to Francisca Reina, and they will 
remember. 

And, last to speak of, but a constant merriment in 
her life, was the ceaseless chattering of what she called 
her Imps. And, of course, Imps of Verse they were, — 
humorous asides, caricatures and topsy-turvies, incon- 
sequential interruptions by the laughable and grotesque 
in the midst of the serious and even sublime. Many 
of them, indeed, scribbled themselves in the middle of the 
Songs and Rubaiyat, with glee, she said, at their power 
to distort the beautiful and put the sublime to the 
ridiculous. She called them Pranks of the Jongleur; 
they are at the end of the book. 

Amelia Woodward Truesdell was born at Lowell, 
Massachusetts, October 20, 1839. She graduated from 
Mt. Holyoke College, July 27, 1858. In 1864 she came 
to San Francisco, and was married to Orran P. Truesdell, 
of whom she was bereaved in the year 1869. In 1873 



[ix] 



she lost her first son. Ten years later she was left alone 
by the death of her other son. 

With unusual courage and initiative she then turned 
to many things, and by sheer force of will created for 
herself interests and responsibilities. As a business 
manager, a member of clubs, an occasional lecturer and 
writer, she was always at once vital and very kind. 
Lest the march of knowledge should find her a straggler, 
she had the ambition and bravery (for such it is) to 
enroll herself at a somewhat advanced age as a student 
in a university. She received a degree; but she prob- 
ably gave more than she received, for the way she bore 
her years was always an inspiration to younger gener- 
ations. Young people loved her, and admired her eager- 
ness to learn, — perhaps marvelled at such a great desire. 

She died in November, 1912. 

******** 

The present editor and friend was asked by Mrs. 
Truesdell to place together those of her poems, pub- 
lished and unpublished, that to her had seemed nearest 
worthy of preservation. And where she herself had 
not made full selection, he was asked to use his own 
judgment. This he has done, — how well he cannot say, 
for the loss of a most dear friend has been in his heart, 
and when he reads these poems he hears her speaking; 
he only knows the tones he loved best and thought 
sweetest. 

These, at any rate, are most of the songs she made, 
from the beginning to the end of her loves and sorrows, — 
"All the Way." 

B. K. 



The SouFs Rubaiyat 



U'The SouVs Rubaiyat": 

A. M. Robertson, San Francisco 

1911] 



Pars, awake! The humming -hir d' s a-wing; 

Still thrills the nightingale's sweet welcoming. 

Lo, from the hills — the Spring, her hair snow-splashed! 

Rose gardens hurst to wildest blossoming. 

But night owls hoot around Persepolis; 
Where jeweled feet have trod, the serpents hiss; 
To these dead halls there comes no Springtime bliss: 
My time-old search for truth is but as this. 

This quest sung he who took the Yine to Spouse; 
Nay Pars, why from thy thousand dreams arouse? 
If dark thine ancient doors, where dwells the light? 
In Omar's harp, why wake despair's carouse? 



[3] 

The Soul's Rubaiyat 

Part I 



Of him who walked a thousand years ago 
In Persian vales, and studied human woe 
And the great Euler's scheme to man, I read 
And wondered if aught more to-day we know; 

Aught more, life's puzzle-riddle solve than he; 
The Whence, the Why, the Whither, and To-Be. 
We still are groping for the Great Reply ; 
Through veils and forms, O God, we search for Thee. 

II 

He taught beneath the rose-trees of Iran, 
This poet, seer, philosopher ; this man 
Who spared not all his learning's treasure trove. 
But vain his wisdom of the star- writ plan ! 

Still would the multitude, like driven swine, 
On superstition feed, and call it wine 
Of life, though bitter with the creeds of men ; 
For sleek Tradition cried, *'A draught divine!" 

Ill 

Tradition! Serpent-born at Eden's gate. 
Still deifying fetish, faith, and fate; 
On altars strange, his false lights burning yet, 
Still blind men's eyes unto their high estate. 

Tradition ! Keeper of the deadly keys 
Where souls are locked in darkness, fed on lees 
Of legends steeped in dreams, dank cloister weeds : 
God, how could 'st Thou look and suffer these ? 



[4 



IV 

From wading in the muck of daily care, 
From 'midst the ashes of dead hopes' despair, 
Our souls still wait, with long endurance dull. 
And lifting helpless hands cry, ''Master, where?" 

**A score of centuries since Jesus died, 
And Sin our daily comrade still?" we cried. 
His life ! And could it be in vain ? Then weep. 
Weep on, thou mother of the Crucified ! 



I loved the high Ideal I called the Lord; 
I worshiped at that shrine with heart's accord. 
Athwart the altar trailed a serpent Doubt, 
And left envenomed there the name of God. 

With the Almighty would you make a trade, 
As with a huckster by the road-side paid ? 
So much salvation for so much shed blood, 
And thus your own just penalty evade? 

The soul revolts at such a sacrifice, 

Such banal temporizing with a vice ; 

The sweetest life the world has ever known 

Is lost to earth for me — ^unworth the price? 

Who then shall weigh the thing we call a sin ? 
For ages God mayhap to man has been 
More lenient than His sons. He knows so well 
How weak He made him from without, — ^within. 



[5 



VI 

All consecration knows the scourge: the scorn 
Of words which cuts the heart as did the thorn 
The Master 's brow ; and through a dolorous way 
It mounts its calvary of crosses borne. 

Vicarious ever is earth's pain; that pain, 
The life-sweat of one body's loss or gain. 
None stands alone. Each hapless child of sin 
Is linked to me. See that 'tis not in vain. 

VII 

From Ark of the old faith my soul went out. 
Philosophy she skimmed, that sea of doubt, — 
But eddying circles in a darkening whirl, 
Maelstrom of words ! It was a sorry bout. 

Where ancient Nilus and the Indus taught ; 
Confucius with his measured wisdom wrought, — 
No foot-stay there, no olive-branch I found; 
But wreckage of a flood of surging thought. 

Through mosque and Buddhist temple, silence-shod, 

To fires of old Iran and budding rod 

Of Aaron, back the devious way I trod ; 

And lo! I found me many a Sphinx-like god. 

But all their lips in silence were and scorn. 

At my poor search through shrines where ages gone 

Had left their manual of a bootless quest : 

For them, no star of some new faith unborn! 



6] 



Altars and tombs showed man in tragic fray 
Of creeds, but still the slave of yesterday ; 
His dread of change, slow death unto the faiths. 
Better a red-robed charlatan at play! 

VIII 

And still the Potter 's wheel is turned by Fate : 
He tosses out our shards of love and hate 
As whirls the clay about. We wonder why 
We hold such scraps and shreds for our estate. 

Sharp-edged tools within an infant's hand! 
These passions which we did not understand 
Surprised us by their mastery. Then who 
Had right for us, such dangers to command ? 

Did Cain, that life was sacred comprehend ? 
Then why distraught when he, without a friend, 
Went forth ? Did Judas know his kiss of death 
Would mark for him, of heaven and earth the end ? 

IX 

For Truth I searched a hundred seas and lands ; 
I heard his call and ran with outstretched hands; 
But when I thought I had his footsteps traced. 
He just had gone to walk on other strands. 

All up and down the streets and country roads, 
I asked for him. Men pointed to the loads 
Upon their backs and dumbly plodded on. 
These body needs — accursed Eden goads! 



[7] 



Within the dark I heard a voice one night, 
And all the air was vibrant with the light, — 
Some thought that crashed its zigzag way ; and then 
An Error's mocking laugh. The ribald wight! 

I thought one day I 'd caught his beckoning glance ; 
Covered with light — Transfiguration's trance — 
I stood wdth souls in white. I raised my eyes. 
Then hope was naught but memory of a chance. 

XI 

We read that Truth from one eternal place 
To us shall ever turn a changeless face, 
A phantom mirror in his hand, forsooth ; 
Of yesterday, to-day reflects no trace. 

For Science changes every hour her schemes ; 
Empiric! What to-day as fact she deems. 
Next year is refuse by the wayside flung ; 
For souls in mortal need, what good are dreams ? 

XII 

I questioned Nature for some comfort-screed; 
For high analogies ; God 's word and deed 
Must blend in one great scheme of law. Quoth she, 
' ' The individual is a worthless weed. ' ' 

The specie life with its unbroken train 

Is Nature 's god ; and this for souls in pain ? 

As cold as death she reads her cruel creed : 

' ' You 're weak ? Then pass ; the strongest must remain. ' ' 



[8] 



XIII 

It is the old estate of me and thee ; 

Dividual life lost in captivity 

Unto the whole. * * What means the world to me ? " 

Thus Omar cried. The end? Earth waits to see. 

Since his red wine a thousand years of work; 
Its bold results our logic may not shirk. 
But of God's mind to man, — the Unit-Soul? 
Says Nature's law, ''Away with shrine and kirk." 

XIV 

Truth! Bemasked with smirk of every race 
Thy brow ! How shall we know thine alien face 
By strange device of old and new disguised ? 
Yet souls distraught still seek thy dwelling-place. 

We would believe thy hidden brow is bright. 
Immortal reflex of the Essence, Light. 
Why change thy raiment with the beggar Doubt, 
With all her shams and trumpery bedight? 

Too faint thy image is in science' well, 

Thy mark uncertain as the sagas tell. 

O Truth, tear off thy masks, and pray make haste. 

Or Doubt shall cast us into deepest hell. 

XV 

O for Ithuriel's heaven-tempered spear! 

Some spirit talisman that's crystal-clear! 

Encased within this casket of dull clay, 

What chance has man the truth to know or hear? 



[9] 



Silent, Thou God, as Thy unanswering sky, 
Perhaps sometime. Thou 'It tell Thy creatures why 
The true and false are dual-unity. 
And now, have mercy if in sin we die. 

XVI 

Since Death turned down the Persian's empty glass. 
The sun has seen the train of centuries pass ; 
Uncertain-lipped, we question still the law, 
And still to us the heavens are as brass. 

And when the past has swallowed up to-day. 

The future from us stolen nigh away, 

We feel the shiver of the river-brink. 

Ah, then forsooth we 11 grovel, whining, pray ! 

Aye, pray to one we never have addressed ; 
Reach for the cup our lips have passed unpressed ; 
See heaven shrivel and shrink above our heads ; 
Ye Moths ! — my kin ! Where shall we then, unblessed ? 



XVII 

My soul go hence! This strife is idle hum; 
This life the beating of an empty drum ; 
A Holy Grail evanished is this Truth. 
Back to thy nothingness ! Thou slave, be dumb. 

And when again th' Eternal Sakis use 

This earthen bowl I found, but did not choose, 

Still other bubbles in to pour, its clay 

The flavor of mortality may lose. 



10 



XVIII 

Will its new lips be only formed to sigh? 
Our questions, will it face with dreary eye? 
Nay, nay, I Ve wept its tears, this beaten clay ; 
For man will then have come the Great Eeply ? 

Beneath this star-splashed, zodiac-painted bowl 
Down-pressed, we crawl with smothering of soul; 
Is it uplifted for the Sufi seer 
Whose tragic songs to us through centuries roll ? 

XIX 

Omar ! Ah, do you yet the mystery know ? 
Is Death a Fakir with no wonder-show? 
Or have the Pleiads now no room for souls, 
The I, the You, diffused in ether-flow? 

Through space as winds Death's caravan its train. 
Have you aught sweeter found than earth-love's pain? 
Flesh-robe of sorrow must you wear again ? 
Why dream I, mad? All dreams for man are vain. 



[11] 

The Soul's Rubaiyat 

Part II 

I 

The I, the Creature Man, unto my soul: 

" Would 'st look within the Ruler's great Earth-Scroll? 

The folded centuries up-gather then ; 

By History's torch new-lit, the tale unroll. 

' ' 'Tis travail and the sweat of blood for thee ; 
The fixed stars of belief reel drunkenly ; 
Thy sun is blotted out; thy God eclipsed; 
Go find us life ; this chaos strangles me. 

II 

*' Rugged the mountains round thy pathway close; 
From peak to peak, far-glittering with the snows 
Of Reason's eyrie home. In what deep hell 
Beside thee Doubt, with torch inverted, goes! 

"Through legend- vales thou 'It follow pale Despair; 
Doubt's poisonous night-shade, but no hope-ray there. 
When plaints the ringdove for her Yusuf lost. 
Thou soul, alone, wilt echo 'Where, where?' 

"But oh! through stress, lose not thy God! No God? 
Rather I 'd be again my native clod ; 
Would set thee free from this earth-hampered flight. 
Make haste : I see too near the broken sod. 

"Press on till bulbuls to the lark repeat 
Thy prayer, thine incense for the heavenly seat ; 
Till thou with morning's messenger canst sing 
' 'Tis there!' — red roses crushing at thy feet. 



12] 



III 

"Set up thine altar then, emblazoned Truth, — 
The In Hoc Solus of they faith forsooth ; 
And thy libations pour, my heart's best wine; 
There sacrifice the treasures of my youth. 

"Thy Jesus Hominum Salvator too. 

This shrine may prove, — those altar-legends true; 

As from the dying seed new breath suspires. 

From faith's dead husks Christ-life may spring anew. 

IV 

"Stand up before thine altar now and swear, 
Thou priestess Soul, that to our God Thou 'It bare 
Thy brow unto whatever name be true ; 
Forgotten be the seal it used to wear. 

' ' Thou 'It flinch not when old altars fall to naught. 

Theologies stripped to the quick of thought, 

And faiths, the sinews of thy life, inwrought 

With thy heart-threads, thou 'It give for freedom bought : 

" 'Tis spirit-vision with the single view, 

A talisman to test the false and true. 

No double thought ; no judgment in reserve ; 

Mammon or God; thou can'st not serve the two. 



^ ' That thou wilt do all this for thee and me, 
Swear it, as there is love 'twixt me and thee." 
And as she passed, my heart wept bitterly : 
Yet 'tis man's only hope that thought be free. 



13 



But oh ! the hurt when old beliefs are rent 
From lives by church-yard door-ways long content ; 
O dogmas sacred as the mother's breast! 
Make haste with healing lest the years be spent. 



VI 

She came. Her step scarce moved her vestments' fold. 

The law was written in her lips ' stern mould ; 

I cried aloud, ''O my beloved speak." 

Far off her voice ; her eyes were deep and old. 

VII 

' ' Two graven tablets found I by the way : 
One chiseled by the Past, one by To-day : 
All faiths must read by these or else we say, 
* Perhaps the master-gravers were at play.' 

''History and science — friendly scribes, if reads 
The reader well; they mark man's changing meeds. 
When Knowledge swings the world in line with law, 
She'll show God's purpose to the human needs. 

''For individual lives, encrusted long 
In chrysalis of creeds, are with a song 
And spread of wings outbursting to the hope 
That Fear as fetish is a primal wrong. 

VIII 

"These crowds that with a nation's vigor burned, 
Whose souls for truth of their Creator yearned ; 
They sought a Christ but found Tradition's hell; 
What wonder if to God-distrust they turned ? 



[14 



"But sons of God, the seal is on them all; 
Not potsherds set in rows against the wall. 
With errors drugged, they stir as men in sleep ; 
New life a-thrill, they would shake off the thrall." 

IX 

**Yea soul, but veinings of a leaflet's plan 
Go read," I cried. "From it the Maker scan. 
The individual, what is he to God? 
tragedy of him, the Unit-Man!" 

X 

And long I waited while she wandered — where? 



Far off I saw her, resurrection fair 

Of form ; her face a glory from within ; 

I knew she had with spirits swept the air. 

" 'Tis Love," she cried. "A heart of love the key 
That opens now the one life-truth to thee; 
That God is love to man, and only love, 
To His own children whom He would make free. 

"In lights sur'fine — the tints from desert sands — 
Beside me stood a man w^th pierced hands, 
His brightness shaded by the mantling sun ; 
His voice, — no sound so sweet on summer strands. 



[15 



XI 

*' 'Man is not left alone upon the sod 
Of earth, his home, though often iveary trod; 
God's amulet of love, within he hears; 
No heart that loves can ever lose its God. 

'' 'And when thou Nearest to the river-hrink 

Thy talisman of love, thou shalt not shrink; 

And there the Angel of eternal life 

Shalt lift her Cup o'er-flowed, and hid thee di^ink.' 

XII 

"And he was gone. The Mother-Earth looked up, 
A twilight on her face ; the hasty sup 
Of sweetness, fragrant on the desert air ; 
Earth sighed for yet a cup — a brimming Cup. 

"A tender mantle of his thought to thee 
Fell on me as he passed. Love gives thee free 
Salvation from the 'Body of this death,' 
The world-old fetish, dread of God's decree. 

XIII 



*'Even as on Judea's mountain-side 



He spake. And then I knew with vision wide, 
Not lore occult nor dogmas complicate 
Made of the Nazarene, the Crucified. 

"But patience meeting wrong with meekness mild; 
Simplicity with wisdom of a child; 
And charity's clean hand that cast no stone, 
And raised the weeping Mary, undefiled. 



16 



"It is the spirit of the Master's thought; 

Not deep developments, by scholars wrought 

Of doctrines that would shrivel on the lips 

Which 'Peace and good will' from the manger brought. 

"Spirit of love all human and divine; 
One chalice ruby with his heart's red wine, 
From lip to lip, the Rabbin then shall pass 
In mosque-cathedral-temple, one pure shrine. 

XIV 

"And there shall come a time of Pentecost 
To thee upon thy homeward way, but lost; 
When 'tongues of fire,' a spirit flame, the truth 
For thee, shall heal thy heart, sore question-tossed. 

"Then life shall be an Olivet of peace, 
And from its height thy vision shall increase 
To unknown kingdoms of His love and joy, 
Till doubts like waves on a dead sea shall cease. 

"Be it Love's Zion-heights immortalized, 
Be it Gethsemanes pain-solemnized. 
Be it the cross of life-hopes sacrificed, 
Thine eyes shall see the fields emparadised. " 

XV 

She ceased. And from her eyes' uplifted sight 
A splendor filled the deepness of the night : 
Oh, mantle of the hope that covered me ! 
Truth, the glory of that desert light ! 



17] 



XVI 

"Accept defeat as to Creation's plan," 
I cried. "There is no other peace for man. 
The De Profundis of a life is this, — 
Would god be God if I His will could scan ? 

"Now in the sun I set the bowl to-day: 
What matter be it brazen bowl or clay ? 
It gathered up the light of yesterday ; 
To-morrow it shall draw a brighter ray. 

XVII 

* ' Once Ramoth scoffed and clashed the heavenly keys ; 
One door defied his hand. 'What then are these? 
Insult from Him ? ' he cried. Then Astrof el, 
'The mystery of His Godhead would 'st thou seize?' 

"So I, the Self, this terror-stricken lord 
Of earth who is afraid to meet his God, 
Upon th' Eternal Sword would lay a hand. 
And would compel th' Almighty's final Word. 

XVIII 

' ' Forever vanished now the great god Fear ; 
Released his captives, to the daylight-cheer. 
Gone too, the little gods of fretting creeds ; 
But Love remains and God is there — is here. 

"I see men perjured, mad with lust of fame; 
I see them reeking with the gutter's shame. 
Behold! they rise and call upon God's name; 
For Fear lives not, but Love with eyes of flame." 



[18] 



XIX 

O Love, our refuge in earth 's wildest storm ! 
O Service, life-breath of a heart that 's warm ! 
A dual-unity, of heaven born ; 
For love is service in its highest form. 

Flame-tints that shimmer on the desert air! 
Love-lights that make Life's sands a garden fair, 
Where joy and pain sing softly to the soul 
That God in man is Love in human care. 



Songs by the Way 



[From "^Francisca Reina and Other Poems 
A. M. Robertson, San Francisco 
1912] 



Spirit of God that fills eternal space, 
Somewhere within the regions of thy grace 

Must lurk the heauty that I seek. 

Strengthen the vision that is weak; 
Flow through my opened mind and leave its trace, 
Aye, fill me with it in my humble place. 



[21] 
The Procession of the Dumb 

In deep thought-watches with the Night, a host 

Passed by ; a noiseless host, still souls, 

Each brow embrand with pain; of thwarted lives 

A dire processional. "Father of all, 

These, too, are thine?" 

And thus the prophet Night : 
"Thou watcher by the gates of the unknown. 
Dumb in the strife for immortality 
Thy fellows seek a voice for their mute woe. ' ' 
And these passed on and on, the hapless ones 
Ill-shaped from stress of bodies ill-begot; 
In thrall of deathless circumstance, — a crowd 
To whom ideals are but a dream of pain; 
And with them those, dead-lustred of the eye, 
O darkest spirits, they who have no dreams. 

Came tearless mourners here, their all in one 
Too dainty bit of clay, or tiny hand 
Uptossing to their arms ; supreme of woe. 
That their wide eyes are dry. And I for them 
Must weep the speech of tears? Came lovers cold, 
Who shivered at love's limitations found. 
And they, the worshipful, who saw no God 
Of joy in their unanswering skies. 

train 
Most pitiful, the artists of unskill! 
The colorist to whom in mockery 
Light's pageantries appear! The sculptor's touch 
Which gives no marble breath ; the artisan 
Whose fingers find no thought ! The voiceless songs ! 
Benumbed of throat and hand, their lyres unstrung, 
The poet souls that know not words' delight, — 



22 



Ah, who shall tell the ecstasy of pain 
That sleeps at last, its songs unsung? 

And lo ! 
A crowd whose likeness men saw not and lived. 
The uncrowned throng of the ambitious, these, 
Who ever for the laurel pluck the bay. 
Who, unanointed with the altar-chrism 
Of genius, yet see visions come and go. 
One bound of foot would walk ; one drags a stone ; 
Together chained, some rage as galley slaves; 
The palsied limbs would keep apace ; the hands 
Close tied would hide a wound ; a deathless worm 
One slays in vain. And all make shift to smile. 
O flameless candle and the empty dish ! 

Thus poverty and tasks unfit and bonds 
Unloved! Fair tastes denied, and all the train 
Of appetites, of passions, and disease, 
Had left on every brow the unhealed brand 
Of shame or multitudinous sin, — dread stamp 
Of disappointed lives. 

Again the Night: 
** Singer from hill- top shrines, the mountain air 
Of life bear in thy sweeping garments down, 
So breath may be in this dead place. Sing thou 
Of growth for all the stultified, — that he 
Vampire despair, is dead. The souls long blind 
That dwelt in error's darkened house, look forth 
From opened windows to the light. Behold, 
Twin stars dispel low-scudding clouds ! Now shrinks 
Dead fear and shrivels in the dawn, Lo, truth 
And knowledge from their star-dust are as suns ! 



[23] 



A final state the universe has not; 

Nor knows all space the wrecking words 'Too late.' 

"Aye, shout aloud that these earth-appetites, 

Of body born, are not of soul. Yea, cry 

The clarion call thy spirit hears : ' When these 

Clay lanterns of the flesh shall fall away. 

Shall into pieces fall, the smothered fire 

In purer air shall burst to brighter flame 

And burn anew as lit from God's own light.' " 



[24] 

At Pompeii 

In sunless depths of old Pompeian halls, 
In pose of life among the pictured walls 

Were human bodies found, unchanged in mold 
Since Grace was shocked to stillness, meeting Death. 
A ray, a motion of the new life's breath, — 

To dust they fell, a heap of ashes cold. 

Within our hearts are secret crypts which hide 

Grief -forms unchanged through years. They still abide 

As things of life, these hopes and dreams long dead. 
If but to-day's sharp lights were bravely thrown 
Upon those figures time-enshrined and lone, 

To naught would fall the shapes of sainted dread. 



[25] 
Sonnet 

High in a Roman tower where white doves feed, 
An artist toils alone. The plastic clay 
He molds with living touch from day to day, 

Till love's own dream of love his fond eyes read. — 

In work-shops bare, the artisans with speed 

Of cunning hands their life-trained chisels ply ; 
The model fair before the watchful eye 

They reproduce with earnest, patient heed. 

The Master 's life ! Ideal so fair and high 

To grasp, we with the Master's thought must vie. 

The workmen we with rude or skillful hand 

From out the record marble, statues make. 

Alas, if idle blows that beauty break 
Which for eternity and time must stand. 



[26] 
Palestine 

Land, a-stoop with penitential years, 
Thou tragedy of treason to thy God, 
Where Sons of Allah hold with foot unshod 

The altar-place of Judah's fruitless tears! 

Moriah's hill! Blood-sacrifice of old 

When David slew on Oman's threshing floor; 

Where Abram's knife was lifted, long before 
The mornings flushed thy temple's dome of gold. 

Thou Zion walls where Jacob's children pray 

Above the vaults which hid a nation's shame! 
Syrian sun, how canst thou bare thy flame ? 

Weep, Israel, weep! Alas for Calvary's day! 

Thou Nazareth, we wonder at thy dower, 

Thou Olivet and Lebanon afar, 

Meek Bethlehem that stayed the wandering star, 
We're dumb before the mystery of thy power. 

Gethsemane, with olive twilight dim. 

We stand where Jesus held the cup of woe ; 
We feel the angel forms still come and go 

Among the changeless trees that sheltered Him. 

Garden which saw love's sacrificial birth. 

Where olives, bent with thrice a thousand years, 
Still droop above our sacrament of tears, — 

O God! to kneel upon the self-same earth! 



[27] 
The Aspen 

A Legend of Palestine 

Aspen, why shiver thus in affright? 

Have your leaves from eternal penance no rest? 
Did you bide so long on some eerie quest 
That a terrified, uninvited guest 
On earth you seem ? 
Does memory dream 
Of the houris whose eyes were jewels of light ? 
Do you tremble in fear or in hidden delight? 
O Aspen, why shiver thus in affright? 

O mortal, speak never lightly of me ; 
I stood on Calvary's hillside when 
He was pierced in the side by the Roman men. 
And the high priests scoffed beneath. Since then 
That cruel jeer 
Forever I hear; 
Forever His crimson blood I see; 
Forever no peace to my heart can be ; 
O brother, speak never lightly of me. 



[28] 
God of the Human Heart* 

^'God of the Open Air!" God of the Human Heart! 
On heights, though Thou art there, of sorrow Thou art 

part. 
God of the forest arch ! God of the altar-flame ! 
Beneath the skies or groined roof, Thou art the same. 

Be it cathedral choir or swinging bird 

Thou hearest singing in Thy praise, 

They bring unto Thine ear the same sweet word 

From gargoyled tower or copse of bending sprays. 

In busy streets where we are smallest part 

Of currents gushing from the city's heart. 

In dens or gilded crypts of crime, some spark 

Of light I find, — some thought, some hope, some mark 

Of Thee, illuminating with Thy sweet control 

Some secret impulse of a sin-stained soul. 

In death throes of the hopes that fall 

When we to earth our dreams of service fling. 

In bitterness of joys that pall. 

In fruitless Autumn from a blossoming Spring, — 

Though we be dumb with failures. Thou art there, 

Bringing life-buoyance of the open air. 

In sickness when the pulse is low with midnight chill, 
And death-moths flutter round the candle's flare. 
Thou walkest softly on the night, and lo ! the thrill 
Of life is in the light which follows where 
Thy footsteps make our dawn, ''God of the Open Air." 



*With acknowledgrments to Mr. Henry Van Dyke's poem, 
"God of the Open Air." 



[29] 

The Bronze Buddha 

On the lotus blossom the Buddha is sitting, 

With the cobra's hood on his head; 
The sun and the moon behind him enfigured 

In a bronze of gold and of red. 
For the half of a thousand years he had sat there 

When the Bethlehem hymn was sung; 
To Nirvana's passionless peace he was passing 

When the Christ-Child's anthem rung. 

On his forehead the spot of the chosen immortal, 

Revered as the seal divine ; 
Ample-lipped is his mouth, but no human emotion 

Breaks the fullness of curving line. 
And narrow his eyes, but life-shot, and gazing 

With a haunting calm to your own ; 
On his lap the folded fingers are lying, 

The labors of man to them unknown. 

And the nerveless type of a dream he embodies. 

The inertia of unpulsed soul ; 
But a mystery vast as the years immemorial 

Which into the silence roll. 
And illusions as subtle as orient attars 

Across the lulled senses creep. 
Till my spirit is weighted with seons and a3ons 

Of stillness and dreamless sleep. 



[30] 

The Song of To-day 

The singers sing not the sweet songs to-day, 
Their eyes are dull and their hearts are old ; 

The butterfly's pastel wing is grey, 

The altars are dumb and the lyrics are cold. 

Then whither away has Poesy fled 1 

She roams not the tinted depths of space, 

The Pleiad crown she has cast from her head : 
Where shall we, the desolate, find her place? 

Go down to the room of the panting steam; 

She looks in the face of the fluent steel, 
And sweeter to her than Sappho's dream 

Are the purring band and the humming wheel. 

'Tis the song of throttles and rivets and bonds. 
The song of an age of inventive might : 

The song of the man who sings with his hands 
The poem God whispered to him in the night. 

She has caught the flash from the era's brain, 
She smiles at the soot on her folded wings ; 

She has struck the key to the world's refrain, 
' ' Lo, Matter is crowned and sits with the kings ! ' 



[31] 
A Nubian Lion 

Monarch dethroned, with eyes where smouldering fires 
Seem ever bursting into memory, 
Whose brows are but captivity's despair, 
What tragedy of other life has left 
Such majesty upon thy wrinkled front? 

Why plungest at thy cage? Dost see thy foes, 
Princes who smote thy sires in Babylon 
Or in Persepolis? Thou art avenged; 
Thine ancestors have cast for centuries 
Their moonlight silhouettes upon the floors 
And peristyles of their dead palaces. 

Thou criest from thy sleep ; dost hear in dreams 
The priestess maidens singing by the Nile ? 
Does their low chant drive thy dumb being mad 
With memory of life in Philae's groves? 

Whose entity thus paces to and fro? 

Does Alexander pant for worlds? Thy roar. 

Is it some Cresar's fury at duress? 

In thy dun hide, does he of Marathon 

Brood in thy sullen wrath? Thy whimpering whine? 

Is Xerxes weeping still for Salamis? 

Their peoples are as naught — while thou? Th}^ race 

Is yet the jungle 's prince ; the desert 's king. 

But what is heritage to thee in chains? 
And what to thee is aught save liberty 
And the wild smell of hidden lairs, where calls 
Thy lonely mate across the Nubian night? 



[32] 



Know this, thou prince of Pers or priest of Nile, 
In bondage and revolt thou'rt not alone. 
fellow captive, rest! Perhaps for us, 
For thee and me, may wait still other forms; 
"With kings we yet may walk among the stars. 



[33] 

Sonnet 

What owe I to my sister of the poor ? 

Or to my brother with blood-dripping hands? 

To him the golden largess of fair lands? 
To her the gauze and girdled gems' allure? 
Or shall I from God's mountain summits pure 

Bend down with pity of His love divine — 

But still as largess from some far off shrine — 
To heal the bruises which to life innure? 

Nay, nay ; a brotherhood that knows its own, 
Which passing, calls in no uncertain tone. 
While it extends the even hand of friend, 
' ' Hail, comrade hail ! We fare the self-same way ; 
Come, let us walk together for the day; 
Together we may find the wished-for end." 



[34] 

The Song of a Christian Sojourner in 
America in the Twentieth Century* 

If Christ be God, I Him adore; 

If Christ be man, I love Him more; 

God-gotten One of heavenly fame, 

Or Mary's son without a name; 

Messiah, King, or Nazarene, 

To me the same all titles mean; 

Still at His feet my all I lay, 

In life or death, I 'm His alway ; 

Nor Sin nor Hell shall come between. 



♦With acknowledgments to Richard Watson Gilder and his 
poem, "The Song of a Heathen Sojourner in Galilee A. D. 32," 
which follows: 

"If Jesus Christ is a man, — 

"And only a man, — I say 
"That of all mankind I cleave to him, 

"And to him will I cleave alway. 

"If Jesus Christ is a God, — 

"And the only God, — I swear 
"I will follow him through heaven and hell, 

"The earth, the sea, and the air." 



[35] 

Patmos 

O Patmos! Island of the visioned skies, 
Where John beheld the wonders of the Sevens,- 
The thunders, trumpets, and the vials of wrath 
Poured out: the awful star-way of their path 
To earth, from mysteries beyond the heavens! 
spread for us those fields of Paradise ! 



[36] 

To"H. H." 

Helen Hunt Jackson, author of Ramoiia. 

Her art, though beaten gold it lies. 
Her words atint with nature's dyes, 
Her deepest thought, the under flow 
Of ocean-silences below: 
'Twas not for these we loved her so. 

Not even for the gentle grace 

That followed her in homeward place 

As perfume does a swaying flower; 

Not for her kindness' gracious dower; 

Not for the magic of her glance, 

When beauty's glint made sudden trance; 

Nor her quick ear for nature's cry, 

From ''Hedge-row things" to human sigh; 

Not for her courage in the face 

Of death, when with a royal grace, 

As kings unto their equals yield 

A sword well worn on worthy field, 

She gave her body to the hand 

Which holds the Maker's last command. 

''How she loved us": her voice we hear. 
"It was for this she was so dear" — 
Her words — a flower upon her bier. 



37 



On Presentation of a Loving Cup to the 
Former Regent,^ Mrs. Ashburner 

Sister, by many acts endeared, 
As Daughters of a Cause revered 
Which held our sires in strongest band — 
This cup we offer to your hand. 
Sweeter than garlands on its rim, 
Glowing like wine within its brim, 
The sentiments from every soul 
Shall make of it a flowing bowl. 
Flowing and full it comes to you. 
Flowing with love which years renew, 
Love of the Cause which made sublime 
The conflicts of our fathers ' time ; 
And may this Cause of human kind 
Our hearts as theirs, forever bind. 



♦Sequoia Chapter, D, A. R., San Francisco, January 9, 1905. 



[38] 

In Memoriam 

Mrs. Jane Lathrop Stanford and Mrs. Ellen Mason Colton 
Sequoia Chapter, D. A. R.* 

True builders of the state were they, 
The sisters whom we mourn to-day ; 
Builders who laid foundations wide 
In homes, the state's defense and pride; 
In homes whence high ideals might flow, 
Quickening all life to brighter glow ; 
Builders who laid foundations deep 
In works which still their purpose keep ; 
In works for public weal outwrought, 
Rich in the fruits of anxious thought. 
Rich in the stores of wealth outpoured 
For human good, a sacred hoard. 

Such builders of the state were they 
As were their fathers in the day 
When this young nation made its own 
Th' Atlantic wilderness unknown. 
On houseless shores these women stood 
And wrought in faith of future good; 
True pioneers with steady tread. 
When sacrifice was daily bread ; 
Worthy their names to live beside 
Their fathers' who in service died. 
Unto their ashes honor be 
From every child of liberty. 
Each daughter of Sequoia lays 
Upon their names her meed of praise; 
We reverence give unto their lives, 
As toilers, friends — as mothers, wives. 



'San Francisco, March 1, 1905. 



[39] 

In Her Studio^ 

Within her shadowed room, the hush 
Of silence where erst was heard 
The sweetness of the welcoming word ; 
Upon the easel lies the brush 

And hangs the palette bright, now dull and dry. 
Her chair is empty, but the hands 
Of skill have left their glowing trace 
On canvas rich with many a place 
Interpreted from far-off lands, 

In tones like pastels from the orient sky. 

Here pictured shrines of Philae's shore. 
Here Karnak 's sphinx and templed halls ; 
The smooth-kissed stones of Zion's walls 
Where Israel's sons their wails out-pour; 

And here the sun-smit tombs of Judah's kings. 
In cabinets of crusted bowls 
Whose rose hues flush to life the clay, 
Soft lights on tinted ivories play; 
For hers was of those cosmic souls 

Whose media lay in all material things. 



♦In memory of Susan Merrill Farnham; read before the 
Sequoia Chapter of the D. A. R., April 19, 1908. 



[40] 

To a Friendly Critic 

Vision so high that I am dazzled in my sight 
With searching for the ether's utmost star 
That was not meant to cast its beam so far 

As this small earth-bound range of semi-night! 

Half blind, rejoicing in the awful height, 
For me no lesser sun can ever shine. 
But oh, to reach that height and make it mine! 

O God! the beauty of that far-off light! 

The glimmered splendor of its slender ray 
To twilight dim turns every nearer day; 

When flashes its full glory on my eyes, 

I faint upon the floor of paradise. 
Better than love, better than life, a friend 
Who will not let me choose ignoble end. 



[41] 

Heart of a Rose 
Heart of a Man 

A flurry of snow on the heart of a rose! 

Ah me! Who knows 
The chill that can strike to the heart of a rose? 

On the heart of a man, a cruel tone! 

Hast ever known 
The thrust that can come from a cruel tone? 

To the heart of the rose a sun-ray's gleam! 

A smile's bright beam 
To the heart of a man is a sun-ray's gleam. 



[42] 

Sent With Regrets 

Drink to me with a song, dear friends, 
When lips on love-notes dwell. 
And while the wine with music blends 
Till lovely bosoms swell. 

And when the feast is at its flow 
And hearts are swinging free, 
Then drink with love-light all aglow. 
One sweet good night to me. 



[43] 
A Choice 

An angel stooped down from the hill-side; 

He was holding a golden thread 
All strung with the jewels of promise, 

Just swaying above my head. 

Of love there were blood red rubies, 
And the pearls of peace were there. 

As I reached for the gems in my rashness, 
Spake a voice, *' Beware, beware." 

"But one canst thou choose," said the angel, 
*'Nor again shall I pass this way." 

And I clasped a single treasure; 
But it burnt with a changeless ray. 

In my hand I gathered this jewel 
That blazed beyond all compare; 

And I laughed and I wept as I held it, 
For the heart of a friend lay there. 



[44] 

Grievance 

One time I grieved; I shivered as in fright 
At cold words spoke by love's usurped right. 
To me all trembling, spake the faithful Night: 
"Why grieve that Love in ardor spake so stern; 
The purest flame may in its white heat burn; 
Not in your wrath, God's noblest blessing spurn.'' 



[45] 

The Soul of a Kiss 

Just the breath of a kiss that passed and vanished, 

Like a sunbeam stolen away, — 
But the soul of a kiss to lips that were famished 

For its life that lives for aye. 

Somewhere in the reach of the vast eternal, 

The soul of that kiss again 
Will call to me from the heights supernal 

With its solemn, sweet Amen. 

And my soul shall answer softly. 

Softly and low of tone; 
No height nor depth nor ages 

But my soul shall know its own. 



[46] 

''Men Kiss and Ride Away" 

While yet in maidens' throats the chords are swelling, 

Men ride away. 
While yet within their hearts the song is welling, 

Men ride away. 

From stirrup-cups with hasty love-foam rimming, 
From lips that pout with kisses still a-brimming, 
Men ride away. 

With love-tones on the riders' lips still ringing, 
Their horses' hoof -notes to the music swinging, 
Men ride away. 

From eyes that woke at love's too tender pleading. 

Men ride away. 
From hearts where love a-faint lies dumb and bleeding, 

Men ride away. 



[47] 
The Child in the Heart 

There's a child in my heart that sings and sings, 
*'0 life is love and life is fair;" 
When my heart has peace and the spirit has wings, 
Then I know that the child is singing there. 

When the restless, midnight vigils I keep, 
And suffer for trifles which pass away, 
I know that the child in my heart is asleep. 
Ah me! Will it wake another day? 

When I fret at the burden of hourly strife, 
I know that the child from my soul has fled. 
Woe is me for the joy that is lost to my life, 
If ever the child in my heart be dead ! 



48 



''Love May Not Sing Again" 

Love may not sing again! Awake, awake, 

M}^ heart, and one more draught of rapture take ; 

Quaff deep while to your lip the joy is pressed ; 
Drink, drink before the golden bowl shall break. 

It is a god would sup with you to-night; 

Lose not in dreams his forehead's visioned sight. 

Not vain upon your threshold poured his wine,— 
It would to an immortal feast invite. 

O Heart awake! Too soon Love's song is passed; 
Too soon his goblet to the ground is cast; 

An instant lost, remains the desert waste, — 
Nor tears, nor blood, nor prayers recall the last. 

Awake, awake! Love may not sing again; 
Not every day within your spirit's ken 

You'll hear the wizard voice of Love's delight: 
O Soul! Lift up and cry "Amen, Amen. 



>> 



[49] 

If Love Were All 

If love were all, the way were fair. 

Love reads its own by surest signs; 

But life slips in between the lines 
Its elegies of carp and care. 

Comes policy with narrowed eye, 

And Friendship masked in Ekity's smile; 

Their sophistries the heart beguile. 
O Love be brave ; the world defy ! 

song of love — the sky-lark's call! 
light that pales the morning star, 
And makes a heaven look dim and far! 

halcyon days, — if love were all. 



[50] 

Love Is Dead 

A form across my threshold lies; 
The light has fled from its dull eyes; 
Is that what means this pulse of pain? 
That Love, by its own hand, lies slain, — 
The only way Love ever dies. 



[51] 
Dead Love 

Of all that's cold in Arctic skies, 
Of all that's dead in mother-earth, 
There's naught so cold as love that dies; 
Nor dead as love that once had birth. 



[52] 
Truth 

''What then is truth?" 'Twas Pilate's jeer, 
This greatest question of all time. 
And centuries would pause to hear 
The answer to the Roman's sneer, 
This greatest question of all time. 



[53] 

Truth 

A jewel hidden in the depths, 

A star adrift in space; 
Then laugh the gods that mortal man 

Should think to know his place. 



[54] 
Vita Brevis 

Unless as part of some great thought, 

Why struggle on? 

Our single roles are far too short; 

And life is done, 

Work just begun. 



[55] 

Love's Divination 

For love alone must conquer doubt; 
Reason in vain may flout 
Her cause, effect and sequence firle; 
Our hearts the voice must hear, 
And only love's own ear 
Truth's finest cadence may divine. 



[56] 

De Profundis 

My Soul! 

Can this as truth abide, 

That in the light which beamed 

From riven tomb and manger-altar side 

I have but dreamed? 

Alas ! 

Was there no Holy Child 

In Bethlehem's stable born? 

No sacrifice on Calvary's dark hillside, 

Nor Easter morn? 

Awake ! 

God of our fathers, speak; 

Savior long-promised, come! 

Where shall we find the truth our spirits seek, 

If thou art dumb? 

Behold ! 

Nature flows on apace, 

Unchanged and undisturbed; 

Science reveals each year a nobler grace; 

From Thee, no word. 

A-f aint ! 

We stagger towards the end; 

A close-locked door we meet; 

*' Father," we call Thee, but we find no friend. 

O wandering feet! 

Woe ! Woe ! 

Passed is the faith of yore; 

Our graves yawn very nigh; 

And like the millions who have loved before, 

We only die. 



[57] 

The Gift 

Because I cannot speak the word 

The greatest human lips have known; 

Because my ear may not have heard 
The mightiest of God's thunder-tone; 

Because I could not probe the heart 

To depths which God alone should see, 

I have despised the humbler part 
With which the Master trusted me. 

bastard gifts of unknown birth! 

soul that cannot read the skies! 
Avaunt thy offerings, little worth! 

Deaf ears accursed and blinded eyes! 



[58] 

Sleep 

To sleep! To float upon a dreamless wave! 
To feel the wind-swept senses softly close 
Their portals from the currents of the day! 
Delicious languor of the drooping lids! 
A healing darkness on the aching eyes, 
When sounds become but dying cadences 
Which murmur into wooing silences; 
The soft sweet wonder of forgetfulness 
That creeps with its narcotic on each nerve: 
Then slips the soul her anchor from all thought; 
On each receding tide of consciousness, 
She drifts away upon oblivion's sea, 
Far out to calm upon the ocean's night. 



[59] 

Peace 

Peace! Is it the dull ^ 

Low ache that follows in the lull 
Of pain? Is it the sob 
Of waning senses when the startled throb 
Of passion's pulse has passed? Is it the glow 
Of sorrow's aftermath? Or yet the slow 
Benumbing torpor of too satisfied desire? 
Or is it hearth-stone vesper by the fire? 

Is it the Autumn fruitage, or the thrill 
Of promise in the opening bud of Spring? 
Is it the folded or the spreading wing? 
Or is it yet the pliant will 
To suffer and be still? 

Nay, it is none of these, I know. 

What is it thus I seek, turned to and fro? 

It flees me like the holy grail 

That vanished over hill and mere and vale. 

And faint as hymning of the angel forms which bore 

That jewel-cup forever on before. 

There comes a voice: "Let wandering cease; 

In thine own place, thy soul shall find its peace." 



[60] 

The ''Reproaches'' 

'*0, my people! why my sorrow hanging on the bitter 

tree? 
Why for all the gain I wrought ye, gave ye but such 

pain to me? 

** Though I flayed the pride of Egypt, scourged ye me 

with cruel rod; 
Though I slew her first-born for thee, fell my blood 

on Calvary's sod; 

"For the fiery pillars standing behind ye at Egypt's 

sea, 
Pillar of the flagellation, 0, my children ! gave ye me ; 

**Led I ye from your tormentors, gave ye me unto my 

foe; 
Though I gave ye mighty sceptre, crown of thorns 

mocked my great woe; 

"Though in deserts with sweet fountains and white 

manna ye I fed, 
Vinegar unto my thirst ye gave when faintness bowed 

my head." 



[61] 

Easter 

O soul, be still! Scourge not thj'self with doubt. 

Tear not thy little life about 

With fever of a baffling quest 

For what the angels seek, thou temporary guest. 

Even as thou, the primal man was dumb 
When from dead husks he saw new beauty come, 
And when from nerveless grubby things. 
The while he looked, bright crumpled wings 
Burst forth in haste to meet the sun. Not thou 
To-day hast more with thy demanding brow 
Of this earth-mystery of life from death, — 
This master-question of creation's breath, 
When out of seeming death unfold 
New lives more fair than were the old. 

Go read the life-bloom scattered wide 

On hill and field at Easter-tide. 

From death comes life, the wonder-promise spread 

For man before he had his stranger-being read. 

And when my heart is with the silent band, 
And thou for mine shalt lift another hand, 
Thou '11 see new roses from each winter dead 
In garlands wreathed about some maiden's head, 
Their petals tinted from the petals shed. 

Each Spring-time answers to thy riddle-making strife, 
*' Recurrent resurrection is eternal life." 



[62] 
The CaU 

And God said ''Come"; and all 

The rose leaves fell to earth, 
And sorrow's smothering pall 

Hushed every sound of mirth; 

Then the stars went out by night, 
And the sun grew dim by day, 

For the souls that I loved, from my sight 
Had fled away and away. 

In the realm where I may not follow — 
Though I stand on the border land — 

They're safe in the sacred hollow 
Of His dear overshadowing hand. 

But as they passed on they threw me 
A smile so aglow with heaven's light, 

That from my despair it might woo me 
And glorify all my night. 

Though I walk through strange dark places 
While I wait for the coming day, 

I know that their radiant faces 
Are not so far away. 

For I feel the effulgent glory 

Of that smile when I watch in the night, 
Like a benison pure and holy 

Turning all my gloom to light. 



[63] 

I 
Transition 

O lay again thy hand in mine, 
The day is done; 

say again all joys divine 
And earthly from my eyelids shine. 

The sands are run. 

1 see the gleam of some far land 

Where bright ones dwell; 
Like presence of that angel-band, 
I hear thy voice and feel thy hand. 

Dear heart, farewell. 

Love will not die but grow more fair 

When earth is gone; 
As I pass hence, I know not where. 
Speak on dear voice through ambient air 
And be one tone familiar there. 

Dear voice, speak on. 



[64] 

Stabat Mater 

Thou Mournful Mother, standing by the cross with 

eyes uplift 
Where thy stricken Son was hanging when doubt's 

sword thine own heart rift! 

Vain man's cry of Stahat Mater, wailing down the 

mournful years, 
To rehearse thy living anguish and the meaning of 

thy tears; 

If on earth, one knew thy woe, some mother like thy- 
self 'twould be, 

Wrung by pangs for which 'twere vain to seek words' 
idle pageantry. 

Such with pain transfixed stand as thou beside the 

struggling clay, 
Dumb and lifting helpless hands in heritage of Eden's 

day. 

And to these thou shoAvest near the might of thy 

stupendous pain — 
Woe supremest save the cry that rent the temple's veil 

in twain. 

Such alone the fiery baptism which may give thy grief 

to know. 
Thou who art the ideal Mother sacred to earth's 

holiest woe. 

Lovely type of purest sorrow! Solitude thy fitting 

shrine, 
For the giddy world has nothing for an anguish such 

as thine. 



[65] 



And thy face with woe transiigiired tells from altars 

grand or rude, 
How a mother's pain may be a soul's sublime 

beatitude. 



[66] 

A Good Friday Devotion 

(Written during service, April, 1909.) 

Lo, even now, the sky's far rim, 

By seraphs flecked and full of song; 
Darkness and silence were not long; 

The end of woe has come for Him. 

Mother! Look unto the dawn; 

Draw out the sword that pierced thy heart; 

He has fulfilled the cruel part; 
Forever more 'tis Easter Morn. 



[67] 
The Mater Pia 

Softly the fading moon dies in the sky; 
Softly sigh night winds their sweet lullaby; 
Star-eyes of angels are watching with me,— 
Lullaby, lullaby, God is with thee. 

O Babe, a tear-drop in thy sleep! 

Israel's wayward, lagging feet! 
Why linger thy Messiah to greet? 

Rachel, do mothers always weep? 

What mean this transport and this pain? 
God of my sires, across my sight 
A vision drifts of storm and light, — 

A flaming crown, a victim slain. 

Sleep on, sweet Babe; awhile to me 
Is given to hush thy human cry; 

1 worship with the lullaby. 
And give the reverent breast to thee. 

Softly the fading moon dies in the sky; 
Softly sigh night winds their sweet lullaby ; 
Star-eyes of angels are watching with me,- 
Lullaby, lullaby, God is with thee. 



[68] 

The First Christmas 

O Mary, drooping by the door 
Which closed before thy weary feet, 
Fainting upon the court-yard's crowded floor, 
We see thee patient, sweet. 

Patient and sweet; no murmur falls 
From lips that curve with coming pain, 
For angel voices in the cattle-stalls 
Thy flagging strength sustain. 

O wondrous night ! love divine ! 
star that startled Eastern skies! 
O glory of the manger-temple's shrine, 
Earth's rapture and surprise! 

Mother, hailed the blessed maid ! 
Did'st hear between thy smiles and tears, 
When first within thine arms the Babe was laid, 
The songs of grateful years? 

We speak thy name with loving praise. 
And thy Magnificat shall ring 
Till thee we meet, at ending of the days. 
Before thy Son, the King. 



[69] 

Love Is Saved 

What you most loved but could not save 
You will not find with watching by a grave, 
For that great love your being craved, 
God had already saved. 



[70] 

Farther Shores 

Their ships sailed on — sailed on; was left 

My bark to struggle with the storm; 
And of their beckoning smiles bereft, 

I sat till twilight wrapped my form. 
And still I sail and sail 'mid stress 

Of seas and change of day and night; 
Though tossed upon the waves' distress, 

Somehow I glide into the light. 

I know not how the skies grow clear, 

Nor do I see the guiding hand. 
As 'midst the changing floods I steer, 

My eyes upon a distant band 
Of light that shows a nearing shore. 

I think it is the gleam of day, 
Where they await me evermore 

Whose ships sailed on and far away. 



[71] 
In Bondage 

Better than I thou Lord dost know 
The heart beneath this crust of earth, 
The trammels of the fleshly birth, 
The clay which crowds and binds us so. 

This strong-weak body from my soul 
Importunate its will demands; 
And scarce the service of my hands 
Can its infirmities control. 

Thou knowest all the winged thought 
Which panting, bound, would fly to Thee. 
Accept the worship that would be, 
And which in wishing, still is wrought. 



[72] 

The Waiting Note* 

In the full celestial chorus 

Lacks one strain that waits for me, 
Note of that immortal measure 

From earth's death-note ever free. 
May I with my heart's own spirit 

Catch that harmony divine; 
Strike the chord with tone unerring, 

Knowing it as only mine. 

Mine with not a broken cadence; 

Mine for God's eternal chime, 
Keyed to heavenly diapason 

When the worlds He swung in time 
In majestic majors swelling, 

Mine where men and angels meet, 
And the spheres in grand crescendo 

Lay their worship at His feet. 



♦Dedicated to President Susan L. Mills of Mills College and 
sung by the surpliced choir of young lady students at the 
celebration of her eighty-fifth birthday. 



[73] 

A Rustic Bridge 

A rustic bridge; the copse at dawn 
Adrip with sweetness of the night; 
From out the reaches of the lawn, 
A lark rose up beyond my sight. 
The air was quivering with his song's wild lay 
That shook and sparkled in the sunbeam's ray. 



I hear across the chasmed years 
The buoyance of that song to-day; 
Hast thou the note dispelling tears, 
To leave when thou art far away? 

Yea soul, love's word can thrill from planets far; 

God's love can ring from star to utmost star. 



[74] 

Vespers 

Though I be old, alone, and dying fast, 
Weary of limb, infirm of step and slow, 
Before my darkened eyes fair visions go: 

Just now I heard the angels as they passed. 

Thou eager Soul, canst bear with lagging Death 
For yet awhile, as Day endures the Night? 
Keep clear thy vision for the inner sight. 

And our new form shall have immortal breath. 

I feel thee flutter with the life to be, 

Soul, as thou would 'st try thy fledging wings. 

Be still! Hush thou thine ear for farther things! 
Not long this fading form will hinder thee. 



[75] 
L' Envoi 

Deep heart of love where never sound is heard, 
Beneath the wash and wave of any word, 
From out our vision shut the earthly day 
And we shall see God's ocean gardens sway, — 

Fair lives cut off in promise of their flower; 

Beauty in bud; manhood despoiled of power; 
And there, into immortal beauty grown, 
Loves which on earth were but in shadow thrown. 



Songs of the Pacific 



[From "Francisca Reina and Other Poems 
A. M. Robertson, San Francisco 
1912] 



[79] 

California's Hymn 

Before us lie the seas which bring the east unto the west ; 

The oriental Sphinx has bared the secrets of her breast, 

And calls on us for answer to her riddles all un guessed 

Since stars went rolling on. 

Half -blinded with the gold dust from our smitten moun- 
tain coves, 

For years we wandered dreaming in our fig and orange 
groves, 

While the placers of our wheat fields gleamed with 
golden treasure-troves, 

And we went gaily on. 

Garden- valleyed are our hillsides — softest hand that 

gloves the steel — 
But the will is rock beneath them for our country's 

righteous weal; 
Our heritage of birthright we will guard with deathless 

zeal, 

As the peoples go marching on. 

For our children's souls shall answer with a spark of 

holy fire 
When smitten on the anvil of a pure and bold desire, 
Till the blows become the key-note of the world 's advanc- 
ing choir, 

As the future goes marching on. 



[80] 

The California Eschscholtzia 

The orange hue of the rainbow 

Is not so deep as thine ; 
More rich than a golden goblet 

Influshing with sun-lit wine. 

On its calyx of pink thy corolla 
Catches sheen from the passing sun, 

As if powder of pearls were dusted 
And gleamed thy soft gold upon. 

Of a truth, the dainty fay-maidens 
Must have crimped thine edge so thin 

Alike to some fairyland pattern. 
On thy stamen for golden pin. 

Deep down in the cup of thy petals 
One spot of a purple stain, 

Where the elves forgot in their revels 
The last bright drop to drain. 

As the scintillant dust of amber 
In the sun does thy pollen shine; 

Such powder Queen Mab might covet 
To burnish her locks divine. 

At dusk thou modestly closest 
Thy petals with jealous fold; 

All night thou cosily sleepest 
In a tent of the cloth of gold. 



[81] 
A Stanford Hymn^ 

Against the night, the skies disclose 
Their beauty shadow-fraught; 

From out the night, a star arose; 
Through sorrow, gleamed a thought. 

But for the grief which sat by death, 
And dreamed its dream alone, 

Our Alma ne'er had felt God's breath 
Turning to life the stone, — 

God's breath of love, to purpose warm 

Transmuting human loss ; 
Revealing life's ideal form 

To those beneath the cross. 

O Stanford, look unto the height! 

Athene-like, thy youth ! 
Led by thy star, seek thou thy might 

In time's advancing truth! 



■W^ritten for the Stanford Annual, THE QUAD, 1904. 



[82] 

A Consecration for a Non-Sectarian 
Church* 

Before this new-made altar, Lord, 

Passions and cavilings we lay, 

All prejudices which would stay 

Our spirits from a sweet accord 

With love, — that love which wrought man's good, 

Not in the controversial creeds, 

But shone, by serving daily needs, 

Divine in human brotherhood. 

O sweet home-love ! This love divine, 
Interpreting with sorrow's art. 
How hast thou, on a broken heart, 
Upreared the spirit's sacred shrine, 
That other souls may reach the height 
Of temples builded without hand, 
Wherein eternal law shall stand 
And God himself shall be the light. 



*At the dedication of the Memorial Church, Stanford 
University, January 25, 1903. 



[83] 

The Song of the Colorado River* 

To my own again in the Salton Sea, 

As the Indians sagas of old have said, 
When times and a time of my exile shall be, 

I will leap again from my rock-bound bed. 

For ages that deep dry sea was mine. 

For me she unbarred her ocean gates ; 
And forever my sea shells and corallines shine 

On her brow, uncrowned by the envious fates. 

How that land was fair when I lay on her breast 
With verbenas aflame and green with the palms! 

Ten thousand ages of beauty and rest 

In the glow of her bloom and her passionate charms! 

But a jealous Titan earthward bent, 

And the rocks he smote both far and wide; 

I slipped from her arms through the mountain rent; 
Ah, then on her forehead the garlands died. 

For aeons she lay with her sands unsought ; 

I was chafing and bound in my narrow bed ; 
But the times and a time their days have wrought, 

And I come again as the sagas have said. 

Though again I be bound I will come from afar, 
To the sea and the land of my heart's desire; 

My gates of rock I will thrust ajar. 

For the Indian sagas are written in fire. 



*The Indians of the South have a tradition that the 
Colorado River tirst went through the Indio basin to the Gulf, 
and that the miles of desert which now lie so far below the 
sea level were lake, and that the whole country was most fertile 
and had a mild climate. They also have a legend that the 
river will surely return to its old bed from which it was turned 
by a comparatively recent convulsion of nature. When the 
late break in the banks of the Colorado made the Salton Sea, 
there was great rejoicing among them, since, according to the 
legend, the return presaged great benefit to the natives. 



[84] 

The Spirit of the Desert 

An Indian rides across the plain ; 

And crushed beneath his pony's tread 
The alkali's white crystals shine; 

Red wheels the sun high overhead. 

Stolid of face and sombre-eyed; 

His mustang's bridle trails aground; 
The sullen lassitude of heat, 

Of smothering light, enfolds them round. 

Hot hazes rise ; in shimmering veil, 
The panting breath of parched earth, 

Their silhouette grows dim; a speck 
They fade into the desert-dearth. 



[85] 
San Francisco Bay 

Grandest bay! upon whose bosom navies of the world 

might rest, 
Gently boldest thou a mirror to the white gull's snowy 

breast, 

And thy deep arterial currents, drawn from ocean's 

throbbing heart. 
Bear as light the iron monster or the white skiff to thy 

mart; 

Rainbows quiver 'neath thy surface; heaven repeats 

itself below; 
As a spirit to a substance, softer there its colors glow. 

Leagues to northward, leagues to southward, wanders 

thy adventurous strand. 
And thy sinuous arms extending gather wealth from all 

the land ; 

Wide thy Golden Gate stands open to all nations of the 

world ; 
Free between its stately portals all flags are in peace 

unfurled. 

Beauteous Gate, when loitering sunset covers thee with 

burnished gold! 
Mighty Gate, when surging ocean thy strong cliffs alone 

withhold ! 

Treach'rous Gate, deceiving many with a name most fair 

to see! 
Blessed Gate, where millions find the golden boon of 

liberty ! 



[86] 

La Casa Grande 

On the Gila 's sun-burnt plain 
"Where naught but the mesquit grows, 
And the fevered breath of the sullen simoon 
From off the desert blows; 

Where the earth 's dry lips are athirst 
And the Gila monsters crawl, 
Stands a house of adobe alone and despoiled 
By the years which scatter all. 

The Indian as wrinkled and sere 
As the leaf that rustles aground. 
Has no legend-torch its grey depth to light, 
And echo can find no sound. 

No house of its kin on the plain; 
Life refuses its brotherhood now; 
Even Death has laid a reluctant hand 
On La Casa Grande's brow. 



[87] 
The Pacific 

The monarch of waters! the giant Pacific! 

How dwells he forever in kingly estate ! 
One mighty hand grasping the Orient hoary, 

The other wide-spanning the Golden Gate! 
Far beyond the white cliffs of Thor and of Odin, 

The centuries' snows are a crown for his head; 
Borealis, his torch-bearer, lights his state chambers, 

And the icebergs their flame-tinted canopies spread. 

To his warm heart he presses his bride with her graces, 
Low responses she gives through her forests' deep 
chimes 
To his wooing, in softest tide-cadences uttered, 

While their love-tale the minstrel wind bears to all 
climes. 
High lifts she aloft the gigantic Sequoia, 

To catch on her brow the smile of his face ; 
And the moons that are whitest and the suns that are 
clearest 
For ages have looked on their loving embrace. 

California, bride of the princely Pacific ! 

All proudly we gaze on the stores that are thine ; 
Not the gold that was torn from thy breast with thy 
crying. 
But a greater boon ask from thy treasures' deep 
mine — 
E'en a throb from thy life when thy soul was awaking. 
When the darkness was smitten ere dawned had the 
day; 
When the light of the cross with the sabre's flash 
mingled. 
And the chaos of change in thy morn rolled away. 



[88] 

The Yukon's Song of the Gold 

Lo! We are the waters that come from afar, 
From the heart of the earth so young, so old, 
Whose life-blood flows from the granite and spar, — 
The heart that lies under the northern star; 
And we bring you the song of the ancient gold, 
The waters' song of the gold. 

In the cavern-retorts of the master-smith Time, 
It seethed in the heat and crumbled in cold; 
When the forests uplifted their giant prime 
And the saurians trailed through the ooze and slime, 
He still was annealing the molten gold, 
The unsunned and the nameless gold. 

Ere Thor was a thought or Odin spoke, 
The gleaming quartz into billows rolled; 
Then eternal silence in echoes awoke, 
When the billows uplifted to crags and broke 
In the terrible song of the crashing gold, 
The song of the grinding gold. 

We scraped it down with the glaciers' might 
From cranny and crevice of mountain fold; 
When the altar-flame of Auroral light 
To a temple had turned the Arctic night, 
Then the ether throbbed with our chant of the gold, 
The psalm of our votive gold. 

In the ice-dark caves our soul was stirred 
As men called for our help in the canon's hold; 
Deep under the glaciers our name we heard, 
In the secret springs we leaped at the word; 
We shouted and sung the wild song of the gold. 
The song of our waiting gold. 



[89] 



From the benches' wash in the river-sluice 
A primitive man scooped the shining mould; 
But our pebbles have taught you the riffles' use; 
Rejoicing, we make you a play-day truce 
To hunt from your sluice-box toys the gold, 
Your trifle of captured gold. 

Our strength we chain to their narrow bound. 
But we scoff when you say we are bought and sold; 
With a plunge and a flash, far below we are found 
In the river our home; and the hills resound 
With our fetterless song while you sweep up the gold, 
While you gloat on the virgin gold. 

When the pick on the river's bank is still 
And men come not to the snow-lapped wold, 
Then our song that was loosed at the primal thrill 
Of chaos pulsed with the infinite Will, 
Shall ring as at first through canons of gold, 
The canons of unsought gold. 



[90] 

The Malamute Dog of Alaska 

Thou, ruler and slave of the frozen plain! 
Thou, Malamute dog with the voice of pain ! 
Is it thine or a spirit's, that demon howl, 
That snap and snarl, and whimpering growl 
Which chills like the curse of the slain? 

Thou wolf -faced thing with the jaws of steel 
And the fangs that the blood-red lips reveal; 
With appealing eyes which seem to entreat; 
With thy thieving heart, and thy patient feet 
For the trail where the snows congeal! 

Thou wonder of blended good and ill! 
What gives to thy tones that human thrill? 
For war on the gods, condemned to thy form 
Do vikings and dwarfs in the Arctic storm 
Purgatorial penance fulfill? 

Strange creature! Thy cry on the northern night 
Wails forth beneath the Auroral light, 
As if earth heard again the wild shriek of her woe 
When Odin's life-blood stained the halls of snow, 
The snow-halls on Valhalla's height. 



On the Spanish Missions 
in California 



[Selections from "A California Pilgrimage": 

Samuel Carson & Co., San Francisco 

1884] 



I questioned thus with the spirit: 

*'0, how can I do this thing? 
The pattern is long and hard/' I said, 

''My thought hut a slender string. '^ 

"0, faithless child/' quoth the spirit, 
"Begin hut to weave, nor douht; 

While the other end of the skein we hold. 
How can the thread give out?" 



[93] 
Proem 

Tells the cumbrous page historic how the Missions rose 

and fell, 
Founded by the Frays Franciscan — long their souls in 

heaven dwell! 

How in wretched caravels the padres came from 

Mejico, 
Churchly gifts and treasures bearing o'er the long 

waves dipping slow; 

How when 'midst the dreary voyage storms hissed o'er 

the blackened sea, 
Calm their Regina mingled with that fearful 

minstrelsy. 

Fair as vale of Andalusia to their ocean-weary eyes, 
California spread her beauties 'neath a tent of cloud- 
less skies. 

Rich as Spain's oft-chanted vegas lay her valleys 

undefiled. 
And recalled their own Nevadas, white Sierras far and 

wild. 

To them seemed the mountain torrents, rushing down 

the canons deep, 
As loved Tagus or as Darro from Granada's rugged 

steep. 



[94] 

San Diego 

In the College San Fernando, in the State of Mejico, 
Hangs a canvas dim with shadows thrown a century 
ago; 

From it looks a monk Franciscan, in his order's robe 

complete. 
Cowled serge and hempen girdle falling to his sandaled 

feet ; 

In his hand he holds a stone with which to beat his 

naked breast; 
Near him lie a skull and scourge, and stands the chalice 

ever blessed; 

Scintillant 'neath glowing faith, burns zeal as deathless 

and as bright 
As the fire on Aztec temples through a fervid tropic 

night : 

Such was Padre Serra preaching, as they say who 

knew him well, 
Fray Junipero whose labors now but ruined altars tell. 

Serra thence all blindly wandered, dreaming not the 

stores of fate. 
O'er the place which should be later by his brothers 

consecrate; 

O'er the land where Coronado and De Niga sought 

in vain 
For the seven-storied city — the Quivira of the plain, 



[95 



Where the marigolds upspringing o 'er the hasty graves 

should tell, 
By a miracle of verdure, where the faithful friars fell; 

Where procession of the murdered should pace o'er 

the blood-stained sand. 
Each one bearing through night's darkness torch 

flamboyant in his hand, 

While before them cross majestic, borne by unseen ones 

along. 
Should cast such unearthly radiance on the chanting 

white-robed throng. 

They should seem as flaming spirits, purging desecrated 

ground 
With their versicles and incense, broken altars round 

and round; 

Till these pagans, sorely frighted at the phantom night 

by night. 
Should flee hasty leagues far southward from the weird 

avenging sight. 

Hence out-strajdng from his course to borders of the 
desert-land, 

Where the cacti and mesquit yet mingle with the drift- 
ing sand; 

Where shrink from the dry lakes sand-choked, e'en the 

bitter streams away. 
And dead craters, with their burnt lips, lap the red 

sun's blasting ray; 



96 



Still they toiled the hot earth o'er, where sea-shells 

gleamed on waves of sand; 
Swept o'er them the dread sirocco 'neath the fierce light 

of that land. 

Then with guile a strange mirage raised fevered moun- 
tains in their sight; 

Rose such walls as once on Patmos lay against supernal 
light; 

Sprung tall minarets from temples tipped with balls of 

golden glow, 
Casting spires of waving shadow on the bird-flecked 

lakes below. 

Toiled they on through Arizuma, land as wondrous 
winter fair; 

But the spring-time's life had withered and the sum- 
mer death was there. 

Onward, though the red simoon still sullen o'er the 

white dunes roll; 
Spake the soldiers, *'God in heaven! hath this hideous 

place a soul?" 

Then quoth Serra, "Lo! the answer," pointing where 

their eager eyes 
Saw from whorl of spiked cactus, tall white tree of 

blossoms rise.* 



•The Yucca, or Spanish Bayonet. 



[97] 



Shaft, as marble of Carrara — graved as with a sculp- 
tor's care; 

Carven tower of polished petals, graced with stamens 
waxen fair. 

Spake he, "Children, let your lives be e'en thus rich 

in hol}^ deeds, 
Blooming in the fiery desert which would stifle common 

weeds. ' ' 

Thus encouraged, toiled they onward, till from height 

of sea-girt shore, 
Saw they ship masts upward pointing, telling their long 

journey o'er; 

For the rude ships from La Paz, which sought Vis- 
caino's Monterey, 

Lay with sailors sick or dead in San Diego's close- 
locked bay. 

Three moons Serra's friends had waited for his band 

they mourned as dead. 
Roaming o'er the coast and mesa where Spring's 

blazonry was spread — 

Turquoise stars and stars of sapphire laid she on her 

burnished green. 
Sweetly decking, fitly matching lawns of every hue and 

sheen ; 

Honeysuckle's conscious sweetness — white petunia's 

graceful cup, 
Blue-eyed, meek forget-me-nots that never for a maid 

looked up. 



[98 



The ambitious pigmy thistles — tiny heads with plumed 

hair — 
And the oxalis white-petaled, with her nun-like grace, 

were there; 

Censers all unblessed with incense — wild Eschscholtzias' 

golden bowls; 
Kose they call Castile, from mem'ries planted deep in 

homesick souls. 

Sick and dying, from their vessels came the Spaniards 

to such land, 
But ere Serra saw it, ravished — shorn by Summer's 

scorching hand. 

But naught quenched his deathless ardor; pealed his 

bells from scrubby tree — 
Glad as if from storied turret, told they Christmas 

jubilee. 

When at length th' impatient soldiers, with their 

suff 'rings reckless grown, 
And despairing of th' Antonio, storm-bound long in 

seas unknown, 

Goaded fierce with cruel hunger, measure set for their 

delay. 
Saying, ** Leave we on Saint Joseph's, if she come not 

ere that day," 

All night at the altar lay he, till th' appointed dawn, 

when, lo! 
Saw they by vouchsafed vision in the clouds a good 

ship go. 



99 



Stiil prayed on th' undoubting Serra; when the fourth 

day nigh was done, 
O'er the tide a ship bread-laden sailed athwart the 

setting sun. 

All his life the grateful father, for deliv 'ranee of that 

day. 
Celebrated mass memorial on the feast of San Jose. 

And some tell that still they see in San Diego's sunny 

sky, 
On this day, through phantom clouds, a phantom ship 

go sailing by. 

And they named the first young Mission for the 

humblest of the saints. 
Eremite at tender age, when life her richest colors 

paints ; 

Didacus, the Andalusian, who came from his hermit 

cave 
To serve Alcala's sick beggars, eager life's worst ills to 

brave. 

Then was reared the once fair structure, which to-day 

a ruined pile. 
Stolid sits upon the hillside, frowning at the valley's 

smile ; 

Frowning e'en upon the river, where the hill its current 

hems, 
Shining thread of curling tinsel twisted round the olive 

stems ; 



[100] 



Olives weird and ever moon-lit flecking all the plain with 
light, 

Till the groining of their shadows mocks the artist 's cun- 
ning rite. 

Armed cacti, as defending, by the garden wall now 

stand ; 
But the gentle palms, desponding, scarcely lift protesting 

hand. 

Gone all sign of churchly usage — gone the trace of 

padres' care; 
Bells nor cross proclaim the story that His worship e'er 

was there. 

Not a saint nor altar standing ; not a mural legend dear ; 
In the windows' deep embrasure dismal owls hold orgies 
drear. 

Mass of sun-burnt bricks adobe, half embanked in red 

decay ; 
Walls and roof proclaim its story — dust to dust and 

clay to clay. 

Parent Mission, well beloved ! built in faith, baptized in 

tears ! 
Man sees only Time's fruition — God looks farther than 

the years! 



[ 101 ] 
San Luis Rey de Francia 

Wide these Margarita Mountains open canons wild and 

deep, 
Leading to San Luis Valley, then to eastward boldly 

sweep ; 

Low they crouch that o'er their shoulders Santa Rosa's 
head may rise. 

Reaching toward one dream-like vision of the sea- 
reflected skies; 

Circling arms they interlace, till to San Luis' hills they 

reach ; 
These to westward, boldly stretching, hide the gleam of 

shell-bright beach. 

Down the canon runs the river — Luis called for kinglj^ 

saint — 
Winter current bold and rapid, summer stream with 

languor faint; 

Ere its bent course meets the ocean, to a vale the hills 
expand — 

Lonely mountain-circled valley, once the padres' pleas- 
ant land. 

Here they built a stately structure on a southward 

sloping hill — 
Castle with its guns commanding all the valley, wide and 

still; 

Once ''most splendid of the Missions," as the chronicler 

relates ; 
Now Destruction keeps each portal — Death e'en at the 

altar waits. 



[102 



Once ''most splendid of the Missions," and to-day its 

roods appear 
In their utter desolation, than the Sodom plains more 

drear. 

'Neath the roof of flaming frescoes to the wall a pulpit 

clings 
And a canopy above it, like a bat with outspread wings. 

In a chancel grandly lighted by a stately lifted dome, 
Three great altars' tarnished splendor tells e'en yet the 
hand of Rome. 

Now appears of former wealth but one old silver crucifix, 
And at masses burn the tapers in quaint silver candle- 
sticks. 

Worship rarely wakes the echoes, burial service yet is 
said, 

IMarriage, baptism, and the masses for the rest of faith- 
ful dead. 

Then through high round arches springing from the 

frescoed columns nigh. 
Weird old music throbs in anthems from the gall'ry old 

and high; 

Indian voices and old viols — cadences which haunt the 

brain — 
Drear as wail of ghosts returned, their own death-mass 

to chant again; 



[103] 



And the Dominus Vohiscum and responses dismal sung, 
Meeting o'er the low-bent kneelers, hang like pall above 
them flung; 

Till the prayer, the Dies Iroe, in the ferial monotone, 
Sobs like backward drifting sigh of those who waited 
Christ's last moan. 

But the curling incense rises with as subtle grace of line, 
As e'er marked its spiral circles round La Sainte 
Chapelle's fair shrine. 

Borne upon the chant's intoning, drifts it through the 

doorway wide, 
Falling soft as benediction on the sleepers side by side. 

In the corridors adjoining, paced the priests at even- 
tide, 

Looking o'er the broken valley and their garden reach- 
ing wide; 

Garden once of toilsome labors, miles of wall and arched 

gateway. 
Tiled steps to a lake descending — lake deep-fringed 

with willow spray, 

Now a marsh where shrieking wild fowl come storm- 
driven from the sea; 

Stalk the cranes 'mong cacti hedges — desolation's 
revelry. 



[104] 



One tall palm in tropic splendor — blessed where wrath 

on all is poured — 
Lingers, as last guest departing from a banquet's 

ravished board. 

Unloved seems this lonely valley, wind-swept from the 

ocean near; 
Rank weeds claim its sweeping acres — e 'en its homes 

look dark and drear; 

And the Pilgrims heard a legend which o'ercast the 

sacred place, 
As might doubt of final mercy dim the light of saint-like 

face. 

For 'tis said that godless aliens, on a midnight storm- 
hid quest, 

Tore its paves for use unhallowed and its bricks for 
walls unblessed. 

E'en from out the tabernacle, holy things in haste were 

borne ; 
Stood accursed the sacrilegious — scathed as trees by 

lightning torn. 

And thereafter when black storm-clouds caught the stars 

from watching eyes. 
O'er the garden's fringed lakelet, noisome vapors would 

arise, 

Rise and shape to human figures, draped in penitential 

serge ; 
On their knees in dread procession, wrought they to the 

blast's wild dirge. 



[105 



Semblance bright of silver vessels, some bore with aton» 

ing hand, 
While weird light from cross and chalice lit the dark 

tile-laden band. 

Up the garden's paved steps toiling — gate and walls no 

hindrance gave — 
Resting not for rugged hill-side, till through desecrated 

nave 

Passed they, laying on the altar what each thence had 
seized before, 

While strove some, with bootless labors, walls and pave- 
ments to restore. 

Rang their shrieks from castigations, self-imposed be- 
fore the fane, 

Through the dim church dome and arches, mingling 
with the wind's refrain. 

And e'en yet the Indians whisper when lights gleam 

through blinding storms, 
" 'Tis the spirits doomed to penance — look not on their 

cursed forms." 



[106] 

Pala 

Chapel of San Luis Rey de Francia 

Here is brooding silence broken by the ground quail's 
warning cry, 

When he watches young flock feeding, breast white- 
ringed and proud crest high ; 

i 

Plain-robed mother, through the sages, speeds her brood 
with cunning feet. 

Then uplifts with whir pretentious far from safe leaf- 
hid retreat. 

Here the flocks of blackbirds rising, whiz upon the 

morning air; 
Far aloft the shy deer listens; to his covert bounds the 

hare ; 

Here the Pala — Sparkling Water — springs forth with 

immortal birth, 
Down the canon greedy quicksands drink it from the 

thirsty earth; 

And the natives fear to gather roots from near the living 

spring. 
Lest from genii that dwell there curse of drought the 

act should bring. 

Here the time-defying olive to the morn its slim leaves 

turns, 
And in colors of the sunset, all its burnished silver 

burns. 



[107 



Still pomegranates spread their blossoms, strangled by 

the tall weeds rank, 
And the fruited Aztec cacti grow against th ' adobe bank ; 

Here the princely aloe raises penciled tree-top 'gainst 
the sky, 

Rugged leaves, like faithful subjects, round their mon- 
arch abject lie. 

And the rudest mural paintings decorate the dismal 

hall; 
Wings of bats by cross and chalice; palms beside the 

arrows tall; 

One old tarnished copper censer lies upon the gaping 

floor. 
And the few poor churchly treasures wait within yon 

creaking door; 

Down this weird barbaric chamber flames the Virgin's 
silver dress, 

As a ray of morn to wand'rers lost in some dim wilder- 
ness. 

Sometimes now a godly father tells a mass in this rude 
hut; 

Loose the rite on savage natures! dry husk on time- 
hardened nut! 

Still their wizard incantations tell they at the mortal 

hour; 
From the priest to wild magician, turn they for the 

healing power. 



108 



O'er them stands a belfry tower, winter-stained and 

dark with moss; 
On its crest one bird-brought cactus grows around the 

broken cross. 

Lonely ruined tower of Pala ! dark with shadows of the 

past! 
Like Death's signet art thou set on shrines which must 

be his at last! 



[109] 
San Juan Capistrano 

Onward from ' ' Las Flores ' ' rancho, following the shore- 
line steeps, 

Ten leagues distant from San Luis, 'midst the hills a 
fair vale sleeps; 

Here the Coast Range, northward trending, opens in a 
tiny gate, 

Where without, the chafing billows centuries for en- 
trance wait. 

"Where th' arroyo, called '*Viejo," finds Trabuco's 

loit'ring stream, 
And as young explorers seek they ocean-world's alluring 

gleam. 

Stands the Mission Capistrano in a spot which well 

beguiles 
From th' impassioned sun departing, all his hoarded 

farewell smiles ; 

Spot which mildest moons illumine, where stars scin- 
tillating rise 

With soft semi-tropic lustre — light unknown to colder 
skies. 

In this calm and restful valley stands a shrine to one 

whose head 
Knew no rest, when as Franciscan, poverty and war he 

wed; 

He who from the Turks accursed, strove to tear the 

shrines profaned 
By the touch of infidels, and by the turbaned shadows 

stained ; 



110 



Who great riches, for the Master, with devoted life laid 

down, 
Grieving he was ** deemed unworthy" to receive a 

martyr's crown. 

Blend the olive and the orange round his shrine their 

shaded green; 
Tender bloom of gnarled vines, tells boundless wealth 

that once was seen. 

And they say that sometimes voices chant within this 

lonely shrine, 
And at midnight spectral tapers round its burning 

crosses shine; 

Melt such phantoms at the dawning with the shadows 
from its slope, 

Gleam^s on it the morning sunlight, but for it no morn- 
ing hope! 

Soft 'gainst ocean's hoarse boom falls the hum of hours 

in idle flight, 
As a picture's darker background brings the tender 

shades to light. 

Mountain perfumes and sea-odors to a sweet narcotic 

blend. 
And each day with languor ravished, slowly loiters to 

its end; 

Till life seems an old man dreaming, and with evening's 

wond'rous glow 
Flash the ruins as old faces gleam with thoughts of long 

ago. 



[Ill] 

San Gabriel Arcangel 

Veil of the Sierra Madre! sheen of light to tell whose 

gleam, 
Earthly words opaque and dull-hued as a child's clay 

image seem; 

Sunbeams pale before the shimmer of the opalescent 

gauze, 
Where the rainbow hue diffused, round Sierra Madre 

draws 

Veil of glowing iridescence, woven from light's loosened 

rays 
Smit by fine prisms atmospheric in a thousand devious 

ways; 

And methinks, when Spanish Fathers named the town 

Los Angeles, 
That the grateful patron angels, loit'ring on the sunlit 

breeze. 

Mantles dropped of heav'nly brightness, whose soft 

splendors never fail. 
And they draped the Mother's mountain in their robes 

—this lustrous veil. 

Such the light through which Sierra looks towards plain 

of Gabriel; 
Such the air which throbs responsive to its morn or 

evening bell. 

Soft bloom, that seems air transmuted, flecks the clus- 
tered grapes with light. 

Deepens on the downy umbels of the gardens, tropic 
bright. 



112 



Fair as Aztec princess wears the orange-tree her royal 

green, 
Through lace mantle of white blossoms, golden jewels 

flash their sheen. 

Such the place by padres chosen for the patron angel's 

shrine, 
Angel of th' Annunciation to the maid of David's line. 

Farthest here once Mission farm lands spread o'er hills 

on every side; 
Farthest roamed their good herds seeking food from 

mountain to the tide. 

Most the Virgin loved this Mission, to her herald 

dedicate, 
Near her vale as ''Queen of Angels," where the 

** Mother's Mountains" wait; 

Early she its cause espoused, when before her banner 

flung 
Without hands upon the free winds — where a vision 

bright it hung — 

Dusky warriors backward started, smit by grace of 

godlike mien. 
As once Romans in a garden, back from face of 

Nazarene ; 

And the ones who came to slaughter, stayed strange 

worship to repeat, 
Gifts from their poor riches leaving, with their weapons, 

at her feet. 



[ 113 



Long the smile of peace thus given rested on the Mission 

young, 
Till it grew to strength gigantic all its humble sons 

among. 

''Once the richest of the Missions," now its desecrated 

feet 
In puehlo Mejicano stand 'mid squalor of the street. 

Here dwelt she whose oft-told story brings the tear of 
sympathy ; 

Who at six score years said sadly, "God must have for- 
gotten me;" 

Kind to life, but no more loving, when the tardy 

messenger 
Found her, eager to rejoin the swarthy tribes awaiting 

her. 

Still a few old Indians linger squatting in the blazing 

sun. 
Crooning of the JMission's splendors when atoU lacked 

for none; 

And they tell of Padre Serra, crossing dark brows at 

his name. 
Tales of miracles their fathers told them of his holy 

fame; 

How once lost upon the mountains came he to Mojave's 

plain, 
WandVing with his people till the fever woke in blood 

and brain. 



[114] 



And through all the 'wilder ed journey told he ever way- 
side mass, 

Though with thirst and famine fainting, ne'er without 
it day might pass; 

That once from his trembling fingers, fell the cup of 
holy wine. 

And with godless haste the dry ground drank the crim- 
son drops divine; 

When lo! from the earth's parched lips, red with the 

stain of Precious Blood, 
Sprang a fountain of pure waters, sweet as Horeb's 

smitten flood; 

And when Serra, with thanksgiving, would have done 

some penance still, 
Spake an angel in a vision, ''Nay, it was the Master's 

will." 

Crossed themselves again the speakers, lapsing to a 

broken dream; 
Passed the Pilgrims seeing dimly, what to these this life 

must seem. 

But there lingers through this dark room echo none of 

sweet notes hymned; 
Drear it seems as soul where doubts have faith and hope 

too early dimmed. 

Slow upon the numbed spirit creeps a horror in this 

gloom, 
As if sigh from shrouded sleeper smote one wandering 

in a tomb. 



115 ] 



'Midst this gray dusk watches still a group of saints 

on pillars old, 
Faces dull and garments battered, names and sorrows 

long untold. 

Stands San Gabriel, the patron, high above the other 
shrines, 

E 'en i'rom face of faded statue, still some angel bright- 
ness shines; 

He most honored messenger of all that stood before the 
throne, 

When God would, unto His creatures, speak some pur- 
pose of His ow^n. 

He th' interpreter of visions to the captive prophet sent; 
He who sat at Eden's portal, whence our ling 'ring 
parents went; 

Who came to the second Woman to announce the time 

as near, 
When through her th' Avenger promised to the first 

Eve should appear. 

Whose high message, ''Hail! thou blessed in divine 

maternity, ' ' 
Lifted to the throne in heaven pains accursed at Eden's 

tree, — 

Stands with ample gathered wings, as if he still were 

charged to greet. 
With perpetual song the maid who stands enshrined 

at his feet. 



[116 



Simple priestess-maid Judean! who should in thy 

humble place 
Deify to all the ages mother love and mother grace ; 

Round this dreary shrine thy roses blossom in the month 

of May ; 
Light this gloom pale votive tapers, when is kept thy 

festal day; 

Then the choir's soft Incarnatus trembles round thy 

vestal shrine, 
As the new hope of the promise fluttered in thy soul 

divine ; 

And the eve's Magnificat breaks forth in glad trium- 
phant tone. 

As thy faith received the glory of the promise as thine 
own. 

Maid "most pure!" Maid ^^gloriosa!'^ Woman with a 

loving heart! 
Though thyself of mothers saddest, mothers' comforter 

thou art! 

Patroness of every virtue! Almoner unto mankind! 
' ' Queen of men and angels ! " in thee, * ' Lady Merciful, ' * 
we find! 

Pure impersonation of earth's sublimated joy and pain! 
Of that love most 'kin to God's own, stand 'st thou 
Mother of the Slain! 

Motherhood beatified woke in thy canticle of praise; 
Let the ^ons antiphone it, till Time sees the end of 
days ! 



[117] 
San Bernardino 

Chapel of San Gabriel. 

Long one strays with dreamful fancies that thy heart 

may whisper low 
Some strong thought for hopeful living from that life 

of long ago; 

But thy desolation palls one with a chill and nameless 

dread, 
As if faith were shaken in the resurrection of the dead. 



[ 118 ] 
San Fernando Rey de Espaiia 

Here the mountains burn at sunset, with that light 

drawn from the skies — 
Trail of glory drifting backward from the young 

world 's sacrifice — 

When the Bactrian high priest called to earth celestial 

splendors down, 
And bade mortals worship fire as holy light from 

Mithra's crown. 

In this vale a host angelic floated 'thwart the ebbing 

day. 
Sent to point the fathers to a shrine for San Fernando 

Key. 

Pointed they to distant mountain set in opalescent haze, 
Where it looked adown the valley through the evening's 
crimson blaze; 

Pointed they, then upward floated, and a cloud around 

them shone. 
Soft as smoke of curling incense from the swinging 

censer thrown. 

When the Morn dismissed the night-guard from the 
border-land of day. 

Smiled she to behold the fathers far upon their heaven- 
sent way. 

But the gardens which they planted, fairest here of all 

remain, 
'Neath the mountain named for royal Ferdinand, the 

Saint of Spain. 



[119 



Olive trees still stand gigantic which a hundred years 

have crowned, 
Triple avenues defining all the garden's widest bound. 

To their peaceful arms presents its thorny breast the 

cactus tree, 
And the noble aloes lift their coronets of filigree. 

High among the storied olives, saintly palms their 

heads upraise, 
And they mingle sighs together for the changed and 

loveless days; 

Grieve they for the glebe unbroken, for the reservoirs 
long dry. 

For the aqueducts where sere leaves in the tiny whirl- 
winds fly; 

Grieve they for the life departed, for the ruined church 

hard by. 
Where they see its cross no longer outlined 'gainst the 

cloudless sky. 

And the only chant that ever sounds within the dreary 

pale. 
Is the fierce, hot wind of summer sweeping down this 

lonely vale. 



[120] 

The Christ of San Buena Ventura 

Ghastly Christ on rude cross lifted, while behind the 

clear-carved face, 
All the symbols of His sorrow, on the wall your tears 

may trace — 

Cursed rods and cruel nails that once were hid in holy 



Crown of thorns and mocking palm-branch; spear that 
drew His life-blood fresh; 

Sponge upheld in vile derision; robe of scorn they bade 

Him wear; 
Chalice of the blessed promise that His life His own 

should share! 

Meet the place for requiem masses which in holy week 

are said, 
When the prostrate priest bewails the sorrows of the 

princely Dead; 

Round this shrine the Crucifixus from the organ's dirge 

floats down, 
Drear as once the noonday darkness fell on Calvary's 

awful crown. 

But at festivals returning, Christmas joy or Paschal 

glee. 
Fresh young voices flood the dark nave with their tide 

of minstrelsy; 

And the rippling light-waves sparkle 'gainst the Cru- 
cifix' dull gloom. 

Bright as that first Easter sunlight flashed on Joseph's 
garden tomb. 



121 



What are names to hearts that love Him ! one same hope 

is for us all! 
Jesus lay within the dark tomb— grief for Him our 

common pall! 

Why the strifes that vex the Master ! the same themes? 

our tongues employ; 
Christ was raised from out the shadows— love for Him 

our common joy. 



[122] 

Santa Barbara 

Here the soft sweet airs distilling seem a necromancer's 
balm, 

Wearied soul and body lull they till life seems a dream- 
ful calm. 

Looked the padres on the rich land sloping toward the 

toiling sea 
Working waves of molten silver into fine wrought filigree ; 

Gazing from the Mission hillside, strangers pause to hear 
a tale 

Of the ghosts that haunt yon islands with their flam- 
beaux far and pale: 

Phantom skiffs like tule shadows, and their rowers tall 

and stark. 
Flit with torches 'cross the channel, through the hollow 

of the dark. 

From the Ana Capa to the Santa Cruz' steep jagged 

shore. 
And from Santa Rosa backward, through the still night 

o'er and o'er, — 

Back and forward to the mainland, to the Missions white 

and still, 
Barbara's and far Ventura's faintly limned against the 

hills; 

Long the rites upon the islands, as if there were celebrate 
The returning day of burial of some savage potentate; 



[123 



And the torchlights white and spectral swept the In- 
dians' swart lines, 

Till the shapes seemed ghouls of fable, feasting round 
some charnel shrines. 

Built they when the spring-time brightened with star- 
flowers the rugged slopes; 

Patron chose — a maid whose spring-time beamed with 
martyr 's star-bright hopes ; 

And the Mission of their rearing lifts its comely head to- 
day. 

Smiling down on resting valley, hills, and town, and 
sweeping bay. 

Round it broken walls are crumbling, which but lend a 

rougher grace. 
As a rustic frame which heightens beauty of a pictured 

face. 

Walls of stone from pave to turret, strong as tower on 

armed field, 
Roof of tiles uplift to heaven — tiles the weight of 

warrior's shield. 

Massive towers defend the portal, and the bells still tell 

their tale : 
''God and truth go on forever, 'tis the faith of man doth 

fail." 



[124 



Ent'ring through a great stone doorway, distant taper 
greets the sight, 

Like a star of promise burning through life's sorrow- 
clouded night. 

Dim light from the small high windows, shrouds in gloom 

the outlines, where 
Slow appears a monk Franciscan, kneeling at a shrine of 

prayer ; 

Friar in a long gray garment, hooded folds of heavy 

serge, 
At the waist with white cord girdled, heavy knotted as a 

scourge — 

Shadow-like he moves to greet us, and the rosary falls 

down 
Where the naked foot in sandal shows beneath the heavy 

gown. 

Shows he silver pyx and chalice ; precious thuribles gold- 
lined ; 

Mite of True Cross fondly cherished, by Faith's eyes 
alone defined; 

And old saints that stood dejected, as if from the altar 

cast. 
Round a crucifix as saying, ''True our love e'en to the 

last;" 

Crucifix of cunning carving, where a matchless hand has 
shown 

Tale of Olivet's grand passion, with a grace some mas- 
ter's own, — 



[125 



Such the vivid truth of line, the heart swells with a sud- 
den throe; 

Seems Gethsemane 's low moan to throb once more 
through midnight woe ; 

Seems the cry of Calvary to ring through sounding years 

again — 
Cry wrung from a soul's great anguish which surpassed 

all fleshly pain. 

Mute with thought, through long dim cloisters, grope we 

to yon spot of day, 
As our spirits blindly stumble through earth's doubts 

toward heavenly ray. 



[126] 
Santa Ynez 

Still upon these craisrged slopes the deer feed in the twi- 
light glow, 

While the bear and mountain lion keep at bay the com- 
mon foe. 

Here Madroiio, masquerader, makes the shrubby forest 

gay; 
Hangs the Manzanita shyly, berries bright by mountain 

way. 

On the creeks the plant of Gilead finds the bay's funereal 

tree; 
Heaven's healing on Death's footstep follows, if we will 

but see. 

Of these hills the herds unconquered, ownership with 

grizzlies claimed, 
Ruled the bullock o'er the mountain, as some savage 

prince untamed. 

Often here the wild rodeo tore the dust from ev'ry hill, 
And the bellowing of cattle made the very tree-tops thrill. 

Proud rode forth the brave vaquero, horse and rider 

moved as one, 
Pawed the ground th' impatient mustang, eager for the 

fray begun. 

Dashed they in 'mong fierce bands surging, wild as bil- 
lows winter-lashed; 

Like white boats o'er waves wind-driven, their sun- 
bright sombreros flashed ; 



[127 



Parting rightwarcl, parting leftward, that each ranch its 
own might gain; 

Savage bullocks with their wide horns, plowed the trem- 
bling earth in vain ; 

For the hissing keen riatas' level circles small or great. 
Seized upon the maddened captives, like a fierce pursu- 
ing fate; 

Supple dropped on horns defiant, sinuous caught the 

flying feet; 
Swayed each rider in his saddle, with a movement bold 

and fleet; 

Backward braced the foaming mustang, rolled the con- 
quered to the ground. 

Helpless 'neath the branding iron, firmly by the skilled 
noose bound. 

Gone the wild herds from the mountains ; ride forth few 

vaqueros now; 
Hang the braided lithe riatas useless on the saddle-bow ; 

For the droves in paltry numbers, tame as barn-yard 

bovines stand. 
In their bondage scare rebelling at the hot iron's servile 

brand. 



Where the mountain's veil is bluest, like bones bleach- 
ing in the sun 

Lie stark ruins of the work built late ere padres' time 
was done; 



[ 128 



Stands a corridor of arches, turned to greet the rising 

sun; 
One waits for his benediction, when for us his work is 

done. 

Through the fathers' stone-paved chambers rings the 

heel's half -shrinking tread, 
Drear as mem'ries through a heart which knows all 

hopes of earth are dead. 

Iron doors and cloisters bolted; rusty locks resist the 

hand; 
What is this whose blackness threatens where the barred 

gateways stand! 

Dungeon sunless as the sorrow which its walls have 

echoed back; 
Soldier life and priestly ruling, here have left a certain 

track. 

Judge not, by the light we live in, men who wrought in 

greater gloom; 
Leave to Him whose vision reaches from earth's cradle 

to its tomb. 

God alone can sift the gleanings which the years have 

gathered in. 
Horrors marked with holy purpose; good, with serpent 

trail of sin. 



Sweet the story of Our Lady who on Guadalupe's site, 
Show^ed her pure face to an Indian, late redeemed from 
pagan rite ; 



[ 129 



While he wandered through the cactus, pondering her 
virtues rare, 

Lo ! upon the hill before him, stood her semblance pass- 
ing fair; 

And she softly spoke unto him, while he sank upon the 

earth, 
''Fear not, son of Montezuma, chosen thou e'en from 

thy birth; 

"Bear my message to the fathers, that a house they build 

me here, 
x\nd my glory shall rest on it :— Son, depart with heart 

of cheer." 

And her smile, a radiant blessing, fell upon his spirit's 

strife. 
Soft as sweet dew of the manna feeding with the bread 

of life; 

Then a darkness smote his dim soul, and a dread doubt 

on him fell; 
Thrice repeated was the vision ere he dared the tale to 

tell. 

Spake the fathers, gravely doubting, ''Lo! the winter 

time perceive; 
Bring us now the Mother's flowers, and thy message 

we'll believe." 

Went he forth to sunlight darkened, prostrate at his 

rocky shrine. 
When a voice like soft air pulsing, spake in cadences 

divine ; 



130] 



Paused the smitten earth to listen, wheeled the birds and 

hnng in air; 
''Son, behold yon barren rock and thence my sacred 

roses bear." 

When before the bishops his rough tilma laid he on the 

ground, 
Stood rebuked unto their servant, prelates deep in lore 

profound ; 

On the robe of aloe thread, 'neath mystic roses piled as 

May, 
Was the Dame of Guadalupe, pictured in a wond'rous 

way. 

Stands to-day an altar where her blessed feet made holy 

ground. 
And the homes of Guadalupe throng the Mother's doors 

around. 



[131] 
San Luis Obispo de Tolosa 

When the fathers passed to southward from Antonio's 

new-made shrine, 
Just within the shelt'ring steeps which bend to skirt the 

sea-coast line, 

Full two score of leagues their journey, as the bee his 
pathway grades; 

Many score they wandered blindly in and out 'mong un- 
known glades. 

Once within a deep, lone caiion, when night found them 

without bread. 
Came toward them o'er wooded hill-side — shadowed 

glories round his head — 

One who led them in sweet converse, and laid bread upon 

their board; 
Found the morn their guest departed, and their hampers 

newly stored. 

And a radiant youth oft met them, offering flask of 

grateful wine. 
And they felt its sweet refreshment, knowing not the 

gift divine. 



On these rugged cliffs to seaward, opened are the graves 

today. 
Where the unbaptized were buried with their vessels 

of coarse clay. 



[132 



Hence a mountain-crowded canon reaches inward from 

the sea, 
Till it meets two pointed summits lifting heaven's 

canopy ; 

Here for Louis of Toulouse they set the bishop 's crosier 
down, 

Gave his name to dreamful valley, river, and the moun- 
tain 's crown; 

He who to the throne of Naples for Christ's love gave 

up his claim; 
Who barefooted, unattended, prelate to Tolosa came. 

This the corridor historic, by the tales the people tell — 
Be they verity or legend — of strange scenes which here 
befell; 

For once paced a sad procession — grieved the morning 

at the sight — 
Bent forms draped in sombre garments, dark against the 

Mission's white. 

Bowed heads, with rehozos covered, followed where Ra- 

mona led — 
Brave Ramona de Pacheco, lifting proud uncovered head. 

Came senoras leading children, from a night of prayer 

and grief. 
Seeking from young Fremont pardon for Don Jesus 

Pico, chief. 



[133 



To their slow half-smothered footsteps sighed the corri- 
dor's cold stone, 

As they passed with woeful mien, by prayers and weep- 
ing to atone. 

As of old came Roman matrons, seeking for their city's 
life, 

At his feet knelt these untiring. Stern the soldier's in- 
ward strife. 

Tolled the Mission bells the moments ; paced the sentries 

to and fro; 
Flung the sun his bloody banners; still the pleaders 

would not go. 

Came the word to stay the sentence: ^'Gracias Dios*^ 

checked their tears ; 
As alcalde of the country, lived Don Jesus many years. 



Gone the plaza and the fountains; Spain's delights for 

aye are fled ; 
E'en the square of consecration now receives no more 

the dead ; 

Gone the neophytes who wondered while the unknown 

God they praised; 
Aliens till their rolling valleys — strangers hold the 

walls they raised. 

Where were laid the Mission gardens, the young city's 

streets are led, 
'Midst them apricot or pear tree, lank and sere, lift 

outcast head. 



[134] 

San Miguel Arcangel 

ye oaks! Ye guardian genii of the broad leagues up 

and down! 
Tell us of the scenes ye witnessed or with smile or angry 

frown. 

In your tops we hear a murmur ; is it thus brave deeds 

are sung? 
For the alien suppliants deign to speak in coarser 

human tongue. 

Answers not your whispered cadence ; is it worship blent 

with sighs? 
Droop ye lower o'er the ruin lifted dark against the 

skies ? 

Hold this truth, O fading shrine! 'tis all that's left to 

light thy day: 
'Tis the soul that may illume e'en wasted lines of dying 

clay. 

Awful silence broods around thee, and the noonday hazes 

thrill 
With a pulse which seems a mem'ry of the life that now 

is still. 



Fare-thee-well ! Such desolation seems of Time's own 

death a part; 
Leave we thee to dreams and shadows; turn we to the 

world's great heart. 



[135] 

San Carlos del Carmelo 

Pause upon the gentle hillside, view San Carlos by the 

sea, — 
'Gainst pale light a shape Moriseo wrought in faded 

tapestry. 

'Neath Mt, Carmel's brooding shadow, peaceful lies the 

storied pile, 
And the white-barred river near it sings a requiem all the 

while. 

Why was name, to Christian precious, found within this 

lonely place, 
Borne by stream which mirrored only swarthy brow or 

deer's shy grace? 

Band of friars Carmelite, came with Viscaino long before, 
Salves chanting to their Lady by this far and fabled 
shore ; 

And their name on stream and mountain brightened all 

the unblessed place. 
As the mem'ry of a sweet smile lightens up a sombre 

face. 

Now remains of many labors by the loyal sons of Spain, 
Not a tropic leaf reminding of the Andalusian plain. 

Where were roofs of tiles or thatches, roughest mounds 

mark every side. 
And where once the busy court-yard, searching winds 

find crevice wide. 



[136] 



Gone all trace of padres' dwelling, and 'midst ruin yet 
remains 

But the church front in its beauty, arabesqued with win- 
ter stains ; 

High two Moorish belfry towers lift the sign of Calvary, 
Tell the deep-worn steps ascending oft their sweet bells 
woke the sea. 

O'er the door a star embrasured tails the tale of Beth- 
lehem, 
Far more eloquent to Indian than the priestly apothegm. 

See from 'neath the low carved doorway flowers blos- 
som through the nave, 

O 'er debris from roof and pillars heaped upon the square 
tiled pave. 

Where were altars, wild doves twitter — o'er them drops 

the roof away ; 
Where burnt type of Real Presence, sunshine streams this 

many a day. 

Softly tread the sanctuary, where the reverend sleepers 

lie, 
'Neath the spot where oft they lifted sacrificial Host on 

high. 

Guards them there an earnest priest who deems their 

shrine a sacred trust — 
He whose search in musty volumes found what place 

held Serra's dust. 



[137 



Yearly here the Indians gather on San Carlos holy day ; 
Sad memorial to the man who would have died for such 
as they. 

Weirdly echo their responses for the saint they do not 

know; 
But they know their hopes are broken, and that Serra lies 

below. 

And they tremble when they tell you that at midnight 

of that day 
Will arise their buried kindred in a ghostly dumb array ; 

Round the ruin in procession with their torches white and 

still, 
Passing through the shadowy doorway from their graves 

beneath the hill; 

And that Serra, like a god, although his burial stone 
moves not. 

Will lead them in mass majestic on the drear but hal- 
lowed spot; 

With strange aspergill will scatter o'er their forms a 

phantom spray, 
While Crespi Vvill swing the censer through air unpulsed 

by its sway; 

And the altar's spectral tapers will gleam on their faces 

white. 
And the Crucifix' soft splendor fill the dark nave with 

its light; 



[138] 



Hoarse will sob the surf responsive, moan the wind in 

minor strain, 
Mingling with the faint far echoes, some celestial choir's 

refrain ; 

Night winds will not stir the garments of the kneelers on 

the ground. 
To the voiceless Pax Yohiscum, lips will answer without 

sound ; 

And will cross the brows unearthly, hands which leave no 
shadow there, 

As the forms and lights phantasmal melt into the mid- 
night air. 

Such the shadow thrown upon the Campos Santos 'neath 
the hill. 

Where the rulers of the young land many graves un- 
noticed fill. 

At this Mission long dwelt Serra — padre of the padres 

he; 
Hence o'er hill and desert went he through his apostolic 

see. 

Thence returning worked he humbly with the Indians 

while he taught, 
Bearing burdens as St. Francis when at Damian he 

wrought. 

Showed he, too, by dread example — torches to his flesh 

applied. 
Beaten breast with stones and scourges — woes for those 

who godless died. 



139 



Told he mass at shrine most humble, not within the walls 

we see ; 
'Neath a low, thatched roof uncomely, served he altar 

ministry. 

And when fell upon his brow a shadow from the farther 
land. 

Thitherward turned he all gladly, lifting patient, long- 
ing hand; 

Seeing naught 'midst heaven's glories his pure spirit 

more besought 
Than a "grander gift of prayer," for poor souls for 

whom he wrought. 

When from self-imposed retreat he came forth to the 
sacrament. 

Rung his Salutaris Hostia, though his form with weak- 
ness bent; 

Rose his Tantum Sacramentiim in a tone that mocked all 

pain. 
While the voice of priests and kneelers died in tears at 

the refrain; 

Laid he then tired head in rapture on the breast of 

mother earth — 
Dumb bequest of his poor body to the heart that gave it 

birth, — 

Chill embrace which he felt not, Faith's glowing robe 

was round him cast; 
Proved he true to poverty and to St. Francis to the last. 



140] 



Bore the waiting ones his spirit, and their anthem's joy- 
ous swell 

Mingled with the notes funereal of the solemn passing 
bell. 

And the boom of dreary cannon told above the moaning 

sea 
How the earth had lost a soldier and The Church a 

devotee. 

And the angel voices answered that The Church in heaven 

had found 
One whose welcome should re-echo through the welkin's 

farthest bound. 

And they laid him by Crespi, the friend whose toils were 

sooner o'er. 
At the feet of Dolorosa and beneath the chancel floor. 

Lie their crypts in desolation — sun and storm upon 

them beat ; 
Desolation is about them — sun and storm upon them 

beat. 



[141] 

Santa Cruz 

Hail thou Cross of adoration! was't in Eden thou had'st 

birth, 
When the new-blessed parted waters found the corners of 

the earth! 

Mystic sign in far-passed ages, when with bashful hand 
the Morn 

First enwrapped with rosy mantle young Atlantis, ocean- 
born, 

Is't by thee that man, an exile, keeps sad memory of that 

land? 
Or was't thou God's pledge of peace, when Eve bewailed 

her lifted hand? 

Thou e'er deemed by God-taught sages, emblem of some 

strange new life. 
Since man first on record tablets wrought his faith with 

cunning knife ; 

Borne by sculptured gods and monarchs, carved on tem- 
ple, shaft and urn, — 

Thou was't old when Egypt found thee; Persia young, of 
thee would learn. 

Bars of death most ignominious, when disgrace was 

heaped on crime; 
The accretion of man's venom gathered from the crypts 

of time. 

Man 's first promise to the future, in which life and death 

types meet; 
Heritage of all the ages when ye lay at Jesus' feet. 



[142 



Hail thou sign of life immortal ! symbol of a death pro- 
fane! 

Waited 'st thou Messsiah — Christ- Man, to unite thy 
meanings twain ! 



[ 143 ] 

The Last Sermon 
of Fray Junipero Serra 

*'0, brothers grieve not that the old gives place to new, 
That the present's rushing purpose to the past forgets 
its due; 

* ' God endures to see the lily drop its petals one by one : 
Shall not we abide the death of that whose work for earth 
is done? 

''Gone our Missions' life midst conflicts, but the truth 

we sought to tell 
Shall resist the strife of ages, for with God its might 

doth dwell; 

' * Truth of God 's great love to mortals shown in Type of 

holy life, 
Whose humility majestic should rebuke man's pride of 

strife. 

"Doubt not that such love shall conquer though some 

faith-built altars fall, 
That the sacrifice was perfect, made but once and made 

for all. 

''By the holy saints and martyrs whose great lives shall 

burn sublime, 
Heaven-set torches ever flaming down the corridors of 

time; 

"By His Mother's seven sorrows; by the twelve stars 

on her brow; 
By her present adoration, in which e'en the seraphs 

bow; 



144] 



''By His holy incarnation; by that Power which healed 

all pain; 
By the Hand that burst the tomb when once came forth 

the mighty Slain; 

"By the glorious Presence Real, — the Eucharist's grand 

mystery, 
Doubt not that the love shall triumph sealed with blood 

on Calvary. 

''He who makes man's fury praise Him, the remainder 
shall restrain; 

On wrath's ruin, temple nobler shall uplift its fair do- 
main, — 

"Temple grand enough to gather all the faithful of all 

time; 
Then shall Jubilate Deo blend in tongues of every clime. 

"If we know not such proportions, see our measuring 

line too small; 
Be sure God's love spans the millions as His sun shines 

over all. 

"Then grieve not at altars broken, or at mould on cher- 
ished shrine. 

God is greater than the ages! Truth is as His life — 
divine ! ' ' 

And the Holy Cross in blessing lifted o'er their bowed 
heads 

"Was in substance as the lustre which heaven's open por- 
tal sheds; 



[145] 



'Neath its soft suffused glory, blent their outlines with 

pure light, 
As at the Transfiguration heavenly forms were lost from 

sight. 



Francisca Reina, or 

Songs and Ballads of the Great Fire 

in San Francisco 

April, 1906 



V Francisca Reina": Richard G. Badger 
Boston, 1908] 



The horror which surpassed all telling; 
The memories still welling, welling, 

— Exhaustless fountain of our pain — 
Let us forget. 
The nights that made us gray ere mornings, 
The desolation of those dawnings. 

Whose like, no suns of fire-red stain 
Had seen before nor may again, 
Let us forget. 

The losses which have made us brothers; 
The sufferings, our own and others^ 

The wrecking of a life's long toil. 
Let us forget. 
Lest we grow hard and unforgiving, 
Lest lue lose that great joy of living — 

The might to wrest from out the soil 
The wealth that is our rightful spoil - 
Let us forget. 

Lest we get low and weary-hearted 
Thinking of old and neiv thus parted 

— A gulf whose bridge is hope alone — 
Let us forget. 
Let us look onward to the morrows; 
As monuments o'er buried sorrows 

Piling the best the world has known 
Of iron strength and carven stone, 

Let us forget. 
Lord God! Help us forget. 



[ 149 ] 
Francisca Reina 

A stricken queen, but still a queen of queens, 

She sat upon the sloping of her hills 

Where wreck and fire had danced the dance of death. 

Her forehead bowed upon her knees she sat, 

An instant stunned by her transcendant woe. 

The smoke still burnt her eyelids, and her throat 

Quivered with pungent acids of the flame. 

The acrid vapors of the steaming muck 

Were in her nostrils, and her slackened breath 

Was spent through ashes on her bleeding lips. 

A while all paralyzed, then slow her head 

Upraised. Her eyes were dim. She saw through mists 

The vista of her hills all gray and still. 

When would they laugh again? Ten thousand homes 

Had burnt their hearthstones into monuments 

For her as dead. That cup unveiled she saw 

Which fate has ready for the desolate. 

The black wine of despair each hour new pressed 

From envy of the nether gods. This cup, 

Scorned lightly in her pride, he thrust at her 

With coward jeers: "Drink, drink, thou boastful dame. 

Dost mock it now? There's nothing more for thee." 

One glance! The vision came! Her spirit's light 

Broke forth in aureole about her head — 

Glory immortal of a risen soul. 

Upright she stood. Hot cinders burnt her feet — 

She knew it not. With fingers tense, the cup 

She seized and, like one born to her own house, 

That black wine of despair she tossed aloft 

Upon the embers and the blistering rocks. 



[150 



*' 'Tis not for me, a queen, this dastard draught. 
For lo ! They come — my children from the sea 
Of fire — each man a king. Their garments smoke. 
Their brows deep seamed, but bright with hope. Their 

eyes 
Are brave, their faces set to conquer death. 
My sons! My sons!" With touch of its old joy 
Her voice rang out among the blackened tombs. 
''Come near, ye bruised ones. Unflinching hearts, 
Together make we sacrificial vows 
With orisons unto the rising sun." 



[151] 

Francisca Dolorosa 

Fore-doomed the horror of the age to bear, 

By Fate hand-gripped, we went forth from our homes. 

From mornings to the ending days we fared, 

And from three midnights to their dawns again 

From place to place ; the while, a demon crazed. 

Destruction followed in a pact with Death. 

And yet a song was on our lips. We smiled 

Into each other's eyes in comradeship. 

The great heart of humanity awoke 

With throbs which stilled the consciousness of self. 

And we went forth to night that was as day, 
To day that was as night, for time was not. 
The parrot clinging to his master's sleeve 
Forgot his chattering. The songless birds 
Shivered upon the perch. Dumb creatures' eyes 
Were pleading unto us. Go forth? Whither? 
To pavements choked with people dazed by shock. 
Smoke-strangled, bent beneath their burdened backs. 
Half dumb and goblin-like in flame-lit smoke; 
Streets harsh with scrapings of a hasty flight, 
Ashriek with dragging things that blocked our feet. 
The mountains called and from the docks the cry, 
* ' This way for life ! To save your life, this way. ' ' 
For hours, the sea, far out, had roared its pain. 

But, now, the bay, unmindful of the wounds 
Of Mother Earth, said, "Come, I know a shore 
Of rest : ' ' and thousands followed it to peace, 
On waves resplendent in a world of fire, — 
The light from an Immortal's flaming nest. 



[152] 



We smelled the smoke of things revered. Our mouths 

Were bitter with the char of household gods. 

We trod the cinders from the city's heart, 

Our city, loved as hearthstones are. Whither? 

The parks! A woman's cry. There stood strong men 

Shoulder to shoulder, their broad backs a wall 

Around one stricken ere her time, her bed 

The street. Aye, aye, men's backs a hasty wall 

To guard that moment holy, from the crowd. 

Instinct of manhood unto motherhood, — 

God! The glory and the pain of it! 

The gentleness of those rough hands which bore 

To sheltering that prostrate form ! face 

Newborn, adust with ashes of its home! 

Whither? Unto the hills still green with spring? 
The slender fingers of a jewelled dame 
Spread out her fluffy down in silken sheath, 
Beneath the forehead of a negro child. 
Her store of dainties hasty seized, she brake 
As bread unto God 's homeless multitude ; 
And seemed it to increase, as did the loaves 
Of Him who fed the crowds in Galilee. 

While tongues of dogs unknown licked up the crumbs 
From off our hands in brotherhood of woe. 

The millioniare 's swift motor-car became 

A thing of life, the while the man's own hands 

Were black with gathering waifs and strays. This car 

Was God's fleet messenger unto the maimed. 

It flew filled with sweet faces of the nuns 

To minister beside the narrow cot; 

With the red crosses of the brotherhood 



[153 



Aglow, it flew unto the service field 

Of skill and love ; then black with priestly robes 

Which held within the sacred vest the sealed 

Viaticum to cheer the way to death. 

Piled with the fallen and the halt it flew; 

Then comfort-nigh for hungry, shivering forms. 

This pleasure-thing, built for the rich man's toy! 

And thus unto the sand dunes and the tides 
We fled, alone or in some brother's care; 
And that red glare beat on us yet for days. 
Till hearts grew strong with giving others cheer. 

No strangers then ! All races were akin 

By God's one fatherhood to all. A man 

Was but a man unto a man. Enough! 

One brand of pain was on us all. I knew 

My sister by the grime upon her hands. 

My mother ! Was not she that babbling one 

Who tottered from the doorway of her shack 

With smoking garments, prone upon my feet? 

Not mine? Those children dragging at my skirts? 

My brother from the hill of palaces, 

His softened features gray with cinder dust 

Of mansions, now forgetting his own loss. 

Tender as to the firstborn of his house, — 

He wraps within his coat of sable warmth 

The sleeping child he found upon the street. 

The holy joy of such a fellowship ! 

The angels must have wept and worshipped God. 

Thou city of our hearts ! With that first rage 
Of passion i)rimitive we loved, we loved, 
Yet helpless saw thee struggle, gasp and fall. 



[154 



What meant the song upon our lips ? The uplift 
Of shock? The nervous power of pain supreme? 
Nay, nay ! The angel hands were blinding us, 
Lest knowing we go mad before the chrism 
Of hope, their fingers touched upon our eyes. 
The solemn joy of newborn faith in life. 
And faith born of catastrophe is strength. 
Extremity like thine revealed to us 
That thou wert of God's plan unto the world 
To civilize. We saw that thou must rise 
In evolution of His purposes 
From thy baptism of fire to higher life. 
Thus meant the song unconscious on our lips ; 
A Resurrexit in a Requiem Chant. 



[155] 

Francisca Madre 

New Year, 1907 

What cheer, Francisco Madre, what of cheer 

For this, the world's expectant year? 

Struggles uncanny hast thou now 

While still upon thy cheek the tear. 

The laborer's sweat is on thy brow; 

Thy hands have changed the timbrels for the spade ; 

Thy feet that danced go firm and unafraid. 

With front of light thou farest to and fro 

Among a city full 

Of wrecks, each stone a shrine to memory dear, 

When smites all ruthlessly upon thy face 

The crime of blood, while from thy noble place 

Greed's hooked fingers reach to thy disgrace. 

With such unnatural foe 

Thy courage is more pitiful 

Than thy first woe. 

life that riots in the Western breast ! 
Despair it knows not, no, nor rest. 
But in Fate's challenge finds its best. 
Through all the pulses of thy throbbing mart, 
It thrills thee, city of the bleeding heart ; 
Thrills thee with promise of the coming year. 

Francisca of our love, what cheer? 

On every side we hear 

The hammer and the chisel ply. 

And creaking of the wains that thrust us by. 

The carven stone had been thy creed, 

But to thy children's sudden need 

Thou offerest with averted eve 



[156] 



A sheath of iron and wood; 
They answer through a stifled cry, 
"Yea, mother, this is good!" 
And pledge thee for a glad New Year. 

Francisca, watcher of the night, what cheer? 

By day, thou paintest in the future's glow, 

The fair dream city which the world shall know. 

But when thou gazest through the chill 

Of night from hill to blackened hill. 

Travail of tasks gigantic must o'erfill 

Thy soul. 'Tis then thou shudderest with the pain 

Of Memory and Hope in mortal strain. 

But Hope, the strong twin-sister of the Dawn, 

Forever young, smiles with each rising sun 

Upon the yet wreck- jagged slopes, and lo ! 

The broken hearthstones flush in rosy glow. 

Above new homes that nestle at thy feet. 

Like the swift-lighted gulls of gray. And thou, 

Dear mother, liftest thy rejoicing brow. 

As the fleet-footed moments run, 

Foreshadowed splendors of the year to greet. 

Thou hast rich welcome for the hovering Year 
That poises on thy threshold half in fear. 
There's a cheer, Francisca Madre, there is cheer. 



[ 157 ] 
Francisca's Thanksgiving 

When the hordes of barbarian Persians 
Laid the beanty of Athens in waste, 
With her sons came their women and children 
Making vows to the gods, and in haste 
Bearing stones for the walls and the turrets, 
Till a city arose at whose shrine 
The centuries kneeled in unlading 
Their argosies' purple and wine. 
Then ^schylus, reading his vision, 
Sang the song of the city 's new morn ; 
Myron felt for the soul of the marble 
Which in Phidias later was born. 

By a power more dread than an army 

Destruction has come to our gates, 

And it struck with a terror and blindness 

Which tossed us like toys of the Fates. 

But give thanks that man's greatest is left us, 

The strength and the courage to do, 

A purpose as grim as our fathers' 

Who builded good cites and true. 

Give thanks for the grain's golden harvest. 

Sun-garner of wind-rippled fields ; 

For the opened storehouse of the mountains 

Where each year its new treasure up-yields. 

True children of Argonauts are we. 

And our struggles to theirs are akin; 

Though the trials be hosts like the Persians, 

An Athenian valor shall win. 

Then Art shall rise from the ashes, 

An immortal unhurt by her scars; 

And a voice shall be heard in the ruins 



158] 



With a song that shall quicken the stars. 
As with vows, the builders of Athens 
Made a shrine of each wall they upraised, 
So may we make our city a temple 
To the God whom our fathers have praised. 

Then spread we the feast of Thanksgiving 
With a hj^mn for the days of old; 
Cheers shall ring for the arduous Present 
And the triumphs the Future shall hold. 



[159] 

How We Went Out 

She wore five skirts, he wore two hats, 

He led the dog, she carried cats; 

A blanket, soldierwise, about 

Each waist was coiled, they both were stout. 

He had a bundle on his back 

And dragged a trunk along the track. 

She bore a hat box and a grip ; 

The squirming kittens made her trip. 

Those catlings yowled beneath her weight; 

He picked her up and swore at Fate. 

In baleful glare of reddish light. 

They knew not were it day or night — 

They plodded towards the Golden Gate, 

Then sat upon their trunk to wait. 

Was this the end, or should they go 

Still farther to the *' Westward Ho!" 

They found a waif fast strapped on skates 

Crying by the Presidio gates; 

He'd lost his pa and on his head, 

Top-heavy, bore the family bed. 

She cheered him with a mother squeeze, 

And fed him of the bread and cheese. 

With other pets around their knees. 

The flames had reached a hotel dome ! 

A lady rich in mines of Nome 

Rushed down the stairs to find the street. 

Rolling her packs before her feet. 

Her latest hat she had assumed 

To save its owlet, newly plumed. 

A skirt above her rohe de nuit 

Was all the dress that one could see; 

Her Paris gowns of great expense 

Were not just then in evidence 



[160] 



Save by a cuff or bit of lace 
Exuding from a pillow case. 
She dragged her bundles in this plight, 
Half consciously she felt them light, — 
One backward glance ! A wretched wrack 
Of nameless garments marked her track. 
A rubber bag — the long-necked kind — 
Was crawling like a worm behind. 
A passer cried — or was it craze? — 
* * Madam, your hat is all ablaze. ' ' 
She dashed it down upon the pave, 
That bird must go her life to save. 
One back despairing look she cast. 
The sight will haunt her to the last, — 
That owl's glass eyes in vengeful ire 
Glared at her from a wreath of fire. 

A forty-niner, camped in town, 

Had watched the city burning down; 

The dignity of one tiled hat 

He'd reached through suffering, and that 

To save, he'd make a sacrifice. 

And so he wore it; awful price! 

An outgrown baby cart he found. 

And started prospecting new ground. 

Unconsciously he took the word 

Of time's old slogan, long unheard 

Since he went broke upon the Trust; 

"Pardner, we'll make Twin Peaks or bust.'' 

A house by hotel-swelldom kept: 
Italian virtuosos slept 
Far up and dreamed of Italy, 
Vendettas of dear Sicily, 



[161] 



Vesuvius and her latest tricks, — 

When suddenly the rattling bricks 

Made nightmare of the passing dream; 

Vesuvius, still the latest theme. 

Came first to mind, as down the stair 

They rushed upon the facing square. 

Cried one with vast dramatic air, 

Arms waving wildly in despair, 

'*0 thou, Vesuvius, my own! 

A shake like this thou ne 'er hast known ! 

Why did I leave my mountain thus? 

Heart of my heart, Vesuvius ! 

Oh, give me my Vesuvius ! ' ' 

This tragic artist wore the while 

Pajamas of the latest style. 

What man, think you, it was would do so? 

His name? The rhyme demands Caruso? 

In garments anything but fresh, 
She rolled in amplitude of flesh 
From one to other of her brood, 
Asweat with love and packing food. 
"Here, Jakey, come and lif dis pile; 
Don't go yourself away a mile. 
Stay wid your pa and help to pull 
Dat trunk, for it is plenty full. 

''Here, Bruder Abe, you're high and strong 
To push your gran 'pa's chair along. 
Now go him slow or you make wrong. 
Vere 's Zolomons ? Vot for you vait ? 
I tells you keep dat puggy straight. 
Der papy! She is pack inside; 
Now give your little sister ride. 



[162] 



Don't look aroun', but mind your feet. 
How much times must I tole you so? 
You mischief poy, now dare she go ! 
You spills mine papy in der street!" 

*'0 God of Israel!" groaned the sire, 
** Found Father Abram once a fire? 
Had Yacob in der vilderniss 
Pulled ever such a load like this?" 
From puffy pores the sweat oozed out, 
For he was greasy, short, and stout. 

**You look just like those pack mules, Jim, 
When we came down from Washbowl Rim:' 
The grips were strapped all over him. 
"All right, my girl, you can't say much 
About appearances and such; 
Give me another pack before 
I wedge you through the big front door. 
You are so trussed up with these things 
You cannot spread your angel wings. 
But you're an angel and dead game; 
Let's hit the trail in search of fame." 
* * ! hush, you boy, it is a crime 
To joke at such an awful time. 
Our home ! How can we let it go ! 

Here Eddy died — Jim, you know " 

*' Don't cry, old girl; if I break up 
I might collapse that painted cup. 
The mines at Washbowl still are rich; 
Oh, luck, we'll get the diamond hitch." 
Whence but from guardian angel's power 
Come cheer and courage in such hour? 



163 



Giuseppe swore this was not Rome; 
He sweat, he wept, and thought of home 
On Tiber's bank, but quite forgot 
That sometimes there the meals were not 
As frequent as the classic shade. 
Nor was the bundle he had made 
At leaving Rome too great to bear. 
Of goods to-day, if he'd been there, 
How easy he'd have dragged his share. 

He met the barber, old Francois : 
They lauded, in their two patois. 
The beauties of the old countrie. 
But chose to burn and still be free. 

"Now, Biddy, give yourself a hunch 

And get the childer in a bunch, 

The soldier orthers us to go." 

Now Biddies argue well, you know, 

And Paddy had a bad half hour 

Explaining military power ; 

And not until appeared once more 

A gun which seemed to fill the door, 

Its dreaded threat would she obey; 

"0 Pat, begorra is the day 

I left ould Ireland for you, 

As granny said, i 'faith 'tis thrue." 

When she begun, it was a whirl, 

She loaded down each boy and girl; 

Hitched up to go-carts full of duds, 

They pulled and frisked like Shetland studs. 



[164] 



She harnessed Pat to homemade fills, 

And pushed behind to cross the hills. 

*'And is't to lave the dare ould place!" 

She cried. ' ' Mary, full of grace ! 

Mother o 'God, look down the day ! 

Pat, mind the childer," — and away 

Within the church's toppling door 

One precious moment on the floor 

She told her beads with Aves o'er. 

That church, fire-doomed ! Her prayer its last ! 

faith God-blest for ages past! 

An auto piled with silken puffs 

And glittering Oriental stuffs 

Drove down upon the sand, wave-damp, 

Seeking in haste a midnight camp. 

A group of Chinamen was near, 

Each man an Oriental seer, 

Calm in his fatalistic cheer. 

With rice-bag parcels banked around. 

They stood or squatted on the ground. 

Quick spoke the leader of the crew, 

''My boys! you like they helpee you?" 

''Thanks, John, these ladies are so cold;" 

The stranger said, and offered gold; 

"Me helpee you, no likee pay; 

Me alle same white man to-day." 

Then with deft, long-fingered hands. 

They improvised upon the sands 

A tent of Persian prayer-cloths made 

With priceless rugs for carpet laid; 

A couch of fluffy pillows piled. 

Those heads to doubtful rest beguiled. 



[165] 



When morning dawned, red-flushed but chill, 

Pulses were slow and voices still; 

Within the tent all cheer had died; 

A squeaky treble piped outside, 

"Madam, she likee bowl of rice? 

I think she find him belly nice." 

Fluffy and white each kernel stood, 

A thing alone, a steaming food. 

Cooked by this wrinkled Chinaman, 

Cooked as Celestials only can. 

The native dames were unsurprised. 

The Eastern ladies recognized 

A yellow angel, but disguised. 



[166] 

Francisca Diligente 

May to August, 1906 

No more ''Indifferent to Fate 
She sits beside the Golden Gate;" 
But casts about with watchful eyes 
If Diligence perchance surprise 
Some wandering relief supplies; 
We thought we had no public squares, 
But she has found them every wheres; 
They showed up quick with army tents 
And shacks and cooking implements; 
While from a bread line improvised 
Good things she duly authorized, 
With life no longer simplified 
To coffee and a bacon side. 
She mothers well these refuge camps; 
And watches all the flickering lamps. 

South Market Street in peace abides 

Indefinite upon the sides 

Of hilly parks whose sacred green 

Had never such despoiling seen. 

In vain the neighbors may protest 

That this continuance is no jest. 

For mighty ones serenely say, 

''These camper folk have come to stay;" 

While vicious wags, "Ah, ha! The boats 

Political are steered by votes!" 

She gives them tent-schools every day; 

The bands for them on Sunday play; 

Sermons and hymns, each to his mind, 

Assorted here the pious find. 



167 



A table dliote she has essayed 
Beneath the park trees' ready shade; 
Till those who toil for bread and cheese 
Have sometimes envied refugees. 
Who would attack a pile of brick 
When soup was waiting hot and thick? 
Who likes the mortar-laden breeze 
While seats are empty under trees? 
And yet, her naughty children cried : 
*'0 Ma, such eggs! They ain't half fried." 
Hear that, jq hapless ones who pay 
And humbly take what comes your way. 
Ingratitude was such surprise 
That poor Francisca wiped her eyes, 
And thought of her reduced supplies; 
Not being learned in landlord lore 
Of showing grumblers to the door. 

Far from indifferent, of late 
She oftentimes consults with Fate 
In watchings round the Golden Gate. 



[168] 

The Simple Life — on Sidewalks 

April, 1906 

A lady, dainty, young, and fair, 

Was cooking in the open air; 

She wore a sweater for a waist. 

Her Easter hat her head begraced, 

Her husband — also with a hat, 

A silken tile — demurely sat 

Coatless upon the curb; his feet 

Adorned the gutter of the street. 

Their stove was but a pile of bricks. 

Flung down by recent chimney tricks 

Of taking headers through the air; 

These were a honeymooning pair 

And found first housekeeping no joke; 

Her eyes were streaming with the smoke, 

The while the sputtering ham she fried; 

The chips he diligently plied 

To flames that blew four ways at once; 

He softly swore he was a dunce 

Who never built a stove before; 

''My love," he cried, "it needs a door." 

And then a moment all went well, 

While west winds had a lucid spell; 

"Now hurry, Jack, while things are hot; 

You take the pot, 

I've got the pans. There come patrols. 

You'd best stamp out those burning coals.' 

Then up the front steps they'd run. 

Laughing as if such life were fun. 

The life indoors was simpler still. 

And all day long a midnight chill 

Wrapped her like hydropathic sheet; 

She Avent outdoors to warm her feet: 



[ 169 



No spark upon the hearthstone cheered, 

For if a curl of smoke appeared, 

A bayonet six feet long or more 

Came flashing through the opened door. 

And water was a luxury rare 

To be conserved with greatest care, 

For when Jack brought it from afar. 

Where things escaped the recent jar. 

To heat it for her selfish use 

Was of his kindness an abuse. 

The evenings were in simple life 

Devoid of interesting strife. 

If through the streets they took a turn. 

Because indoors no lights could burn. 

The omnipresent khakis said, 

' ' 'Tis time good folks were all in bed ; ' ' 

The simple life at night was dark. 

For if escaped one little spark 

From hidden candle after eight, 

There came a rattling at the gate, — 

*'Put out that light!" a stern voice cried. 

"All right," he amiably replied. 

He tried to imitate the mouse. 

But tumbled things about the house 

Till echoes rang, for every chair 

Seemed placed just right to make him swear. 

Against the door he bumped his head. 

Then tumbled crossways into bed. 

It was a morning's task to find 

The garments he had cast behind. 



[170 



You teachers, try this simple life 
Yon call ''devoid of nervous strife." 
See how you feel the soul's spent wings 
Flutter amid such simple things. 
See how the dross, by spirit fire 
Is sublimated from desire, — 
That lust for comfort of the flesh; 
Mark me, you'll know yourselves afresh. 
This gleeful couple did their best 
To jollify the long-drawn test; 
But daily trial recognized 
— By moonlight they philosophized — 
That life somewhat more civilized 
Was worth the burdens it disguised. 



[171] 
The Simple Life — in Tents 

Ten thousand khaki tents or more, 

The parks' green hillsides scattered o'er, 

To the idealist might seem 

Idyllic as a shepherd's dream. 

As landscape gardening, they're not bad; 

Worse picnic places may be had ; 

As summer camps a month or more 

One may endure the flapping door 

And drafts that sweep across the floor; 

The dust and odors in the clothes 

To tent flaps pinned in swinging rows ; 

Wall shadows cast by careless lamps 

Betraying secrets to the camps: 

As habitations to endure 

They should be studied for a cure. 

The simple life in them pursued 

Proves both disquieting and crude; 

That which in art is picturesque, 

For living proves a coarse burlesque. 



[172] 
The Simple Life — in Clubs 

April, 1906 

From various junketings with fate 

Six club men sat in dreary state; 

Millions they'd lost, each man a few, 

A few were left to start anew. 

*'No hard-luck stories, now, you boys." 

Each man was gray. ''Let's tell our joys." 

A deep voice growled, "My throat's so dry. 

There's one old joy I'd like to try. 

You see those tumblers upside down, 

And not a lemon in the town?" 

He groaned at such unnatural woe 

Who'd seen unmoved his millions go. 

One sufferer bounded from his seat, 

Flew down the stairs as light and fleet 

As wings of youth were on his feet. 

For this hour saved from fire and shock, 

An office stood upon the dock, 

A man of venerable mien 

Writing alone could there be seen; 

And thither came our millionaire. 

Familiar and most debonair. 

*'Say, Mac, those fellows at the club! 

You know they've had an awful rub." 

Behind his spectacles' gold rim, 
Relaxed a bit Mac's visage grim; 
These words appealed right up to him. 
The office door he gently locked, 
His visitor seemed nothing shocked. 
Respectable and quite correct 
A safe stood there; who would suspect 



173] 



That comfort, contraband, could hide 

AVithin its little black inside? 

From double depths all cool and dark 

That host drew forth a glinting spark, 

The which his eager guest received 

As writ of life to the reprieved. 

''Come here, you love," he softly cried, 

**My coat's got loose enough to hide 

A dozen such. Let's take a ride." 

Then forth upon the dock they walked, 

These Innocents at home, and talked 

With manners grave and dignified, 

How life must be more simplified; 

On reconstruction well discoursed. 

That forces must be reinforced. 

Until they reached the auto, where 

The cops passed by with guiltless air. 

Mac whispered then, ''Now speed that road 

As if you had a red-cross load." 

What general or potentate 

Triumphant from the field or state, 

Could with this hero be compared. 

This dear old swell who loved and dared ? 

And when he set that bottle down. 
Those clubmen seized the Bourbon crown 
As rebels often had before. 
The hero was ordained to pour 
Into each glass the precious store. 
Reverent they watched the sacred rite, 
Then held their crystals to the light, 
And how they read its golden glow, 
'Tis the elect alone can know. 
They passed the nectar to and fro 



174] 



Beneath each expert nostrirs play — 

Delicious test of its bouquet; 

So lovers revel in delay. 

And then a solemn moment fell — 

Each glass was drained, its dainty well 

A heaven no futile pen may tell. 

The cork they toasted to the cheer, 
And hung it on the chandelier; 
Beribboned there it swings, the first 
To break the record of the thirst. 



[175] 

The Reason Why 

Up and down the face of Telegraph Hill 

While our city was swept by flames, 
An Italian tore, and he prayed and he swore, 

And he called all his saints by name. 

"When, deaf or afar, they answered him not. 

He dissolved into filial tears; 
In the red-black sky still the pyre blazed high 

Of the city he'd loved for years. 

Then a sudden thought lit his swarthy face, 
"The Patron! St. Francis, the blest!" 

In relief from despair, he plunged down the long stair 
To his house with its relic chest. 

Quoth he, as a banner of silk he unfurled, 

"This is Francis Assisi's hour; 
A saint of such fame must defend his name, 

Our homes he must save by his power." 

That banner he waved that Assisi might see, 

But still the flames rolled on; 
"O Francis! behold the folk and the gold!" 

But by morning the city was gone. 

All night he had borne St. Francis on high 

From each point of that rampart-wall. 
"What's the use of a saint !" With his blaspemous plaint 

He collapsed, Assisi and all. 

Next day, quite limp from the shock to his faith, 

That banner he found where it lay 
On a roof, with the face staring up in disgrace. 

Half buried in ashes of gray. 



[176] 



That face ! ' ' 'Tis Francis of Sales ! " he cried : 

"O Mother of God!" he wailed; 
"What's the patron about that he didn't watch out? 

Or in penance, perhaps, I have failed." 

' ' Francis Asis ! How did Sales get in ? 

'Tis not he has the charge of our town; 
How dare a saint rob a saint of his job 

And let all the houses burn down?" 

He seized the staff of that banner defamed, 

As anger burst forth from despair; 
' ' If this Frenchman likes fire he shall have his desire ; 

San Francisco's fate let him share." 

As a living coal dropped down at his feet 

To its sacrificial flame 
He touched the fold of that silk and gold, 

And he burned it, the face and the name. 

That martyr ablaze he wigwagged aloft 
With jeers that were pious complaints; 

For another's mistake, Sales dropped at the stake, 
As is often the habit of saints. 

So that's why the City of Francis was burned; 

The wrong saint was called to defend. 
If Assisi'd been there he'd have heard the wild prayer, 

And mayhap would have changed the end. 



[ 177 ] 
Francisca Gloriosa 

A crown on her head and triumphant, Francisca shall 

mount to her seat; 
Her sceptre, a shaft of the lightning, all enemies under 

her feet; 
The ocean of oceans her conquest, the nations their 

tribute shall bring 
To her ashes abloom like an Eden, the home of perpetual 

Spring. 
And the Orient's stores of the ages and the northland's 

frozen gold. 
Still red with the fires of Aurora, where it burnt on her 

altars of old. 
Shall build her a house of such splendor that masters 

of progress shall own 
Her a queen among cities, — her prowess, that spirit 

sublimed which is laiown 
To the souls that, like metal concentrate, have passed 

through the crucible's test. 
Then the world shall unite with her children to hail her, 

''Francisca the Blest!" 



Tunes of War 



[From " Francisca Reina and Other Poems 
A. M. Robertson, San Francisco 
1912] 



[181] 

The Salute of the " Immortalite " 

{Manila Bay, August 12, 1898.) 

The coming dawn flung out her pennants grey 
Above Manila, where, like baffled tigers hid, 
Lay crouched the war ships of the children of the Cid, 
While Dewey 's fleet held Europe 's wolves at bay. 

The morning, with her sudden orient hand, 

A shower of sunbursts cast where brooding seas 

Crooned softly to the shore. 

The waiting land 

Looked up in dread if yet the breeze 

Were laden with the war-blasts roar ; 

Looked toward our fleet of spars 

With stripes of fire sun-trimmed and burning stars. 

The armed silence of our flag defiance hurled, 

Where from the Olympia's peak its bannered fold, 

Unbound upon aerial waves of gold, 

Flung out its daring message to the world, — 

Our final word, the lifted rod of power. 

Spain ! hast thou the prescience of thy fateful hour ? 

These tides upbore the English prows of steel; 
Far off the scowling Kaiser turned his keel; 
Mikado's sun flushed red before the Russian's frown. 
While they whose sires had scoffed at Louis' ancient 

dower 
In haste before the Czar bent down. 

Still hunt of kings upon Manila 's bay ! 

A muffled danger breathed upon the main. 

Ready to spring our ocean bloodhounds lay. 

The Lion ! Did he proclaim a strange or friendly land 



[182] 



When toward Cavite swept his proud command ? 
The Nations' sentries jostled in the strain. 
Aghast the Eagle and the Bear that day! 

From out the British prows in open view 
The Immortalite came forth alone — 
The Lion's flag-ship by its legends known, 
Two crosses blazed upon a field of blue ; 
With storied sj^mbol of its power unfurled, 
Our ships it faced in presence of a world. 
O crucial hour ! Was the Olympia now to meet 
The standard of a hostile or a friendly fleet? 

Britannia's ship with signal flags bedight, 

Passed down our opened lines. 

At full salute, she toward our flag-ship s^^oing 

Before the array of royal battle signs. 

Agape and hushed, the nations at the sight! 

Then from the English deck out-rung 

Our country's anthem, which the winds bore wide 

To jealous kings across the listening tide. 

Ye lands, upon the eve of battle stayed. 

Under all Europe's hungry guns 

It was our own Star Spangled Banner flung 

A-breeze by Briton's sons, 

Beneath Saints George and Andrew's shade: 

Her child-republic's place acknowledged to the world 

On this portentous day by Albion's flag unfurled. 

Outbursting from those flag-ships twain, a cry 
Woke all the dreaming hazes in reply. 
With brow uncovered our Commander stood 
Beneath Old Glory's loosened fold, 
Amidst his staff of loyal brotherhood. 



183] 



Then from the Olympia burst that p^ean loved of old, 

' ' God Save the Queen. ' ' No men that bide 

Upon the seas have ever poured a nation 's pride 

Through brazen horns so triumph filled 

As those glad trumpets which that day out cast 

A mother's hymn beneath a daughter's mast. 

The watching squadrons with forebodings thrilled. 

Across the waves the stormy Prussian frowned ; 
Looked forth the crouching Bear, 
Scowling at him whose flowery islands rise 
Where Fujiyama's snows are ever fair. 
And they of France, in dumb surprise 
They looked for him, the man they found 
When Dewey's flag above Manila's gate 
Untangled 3^et another knot of fate. 

O England ! 'tis for deeds like this, to thee 

Our hearts are turned. Across the wrathful years 

Thy offered hand : the rancor and the tears 

Forgotten in the blessing which shall be 

When side by side those brother flags are furled, 

Till Anglo-Saxon peace shall lead the world. 



[184] 

Dewey in Waiting 

{Manila, May 1- August 13, 1898.) 

God of our fathers! guard his ways 
Who bore the strain through many days; 
Who held within a single hand 
The honor of his native land; 
Whose ward ceased not with tropic light, 
Whose thoughts engarrisoned the night, 
Whose vigilance forestalled the dawn 
And still patrolled each unknown morn; 
Who stood alone and unafraid. 
And the aggressive nations stayed 
With tact more potent than the might 
That took an empire in a night. 
What but the hollow of Thy hand 
O'ershadowed him in that far land, 
When error meant a name defamed. 
Imperiled cause, a country shamed? 



[185] 

Decoration Day 

There are graves on many hill-sides, 
White stones in shining rows, 

Where half a hundred ^\dnters 
Have spread their velvet snows. 

To each the Springtime priestess 
Her Paschal flowers will bear ; 

Each Summer's offered incense 
Will breathe a people's prayer. 

Over seas in tropic jungles 

Of Cuba and Luzon, 
The tangled thickets cover 

What mothers called their own. 

But snows shall never whiten 
The graves wide scattered there ; 

Above them alien blossoms 
Their censers swing in air. 



[186] 

Espana Dolorosa 

There were tears in Andalusia, 

There was wailing in Castile, 
Leon was dark with sorrow, 

In Aragon the peal 
Of dirge funereal sounded ; 

For now the flag of Spain, 
From four hundred years of waving, 

Would never rise again 
Where the Pearl of the Antilles 

Makes the isle of sweet delights, 
On the Carribean waters 

And Morro's battled heights. 

For the Senor Castellanos 

With no sceptre in his hand. 
Gave the keys of power ancestral 

To a hated victor land. 
From the Palace of Havana, 

Where crime had had its sway; 
Where the sins of generations 

Bow the shoulders of to-day. 

He looked not back in weakness 

With a quiver for the past, 
Nor upward to the turret 

Where an alien flag was cast. 
One cried, ^^ Espana viva!" — 

His heart shook with surprise; 
They saw one sudden tremor, 

One unbrushed tear-drop rise; 
But he trod the marble stairway 

With a martial step and bold, 
Left the Palace of Havana 

With its secrets all untold. 



187 



Ah, woe to thee, Granada! 

Thy sins are at thy door; 
The suffering of the ages 

Returns to thy own shore. 
Hist ! thy children 's ' ' Miserere, ' ' — 

It is history's fate-wrung chimes, 
And the blood-sweat of their foreheads 

Is the dripping of thy crimes. 

Ah, woe is thee, Alhama! 

The blood-stain still is there; 
Haste, haste to purge thy spirit 

With penance and with prayer ! 

Ai, Espana! read the writing 
Of the hand upon the wall; 

Ai, Espana Dolorosa! 

Beware lest worse befall! 



[188] 

^^ Remembered " 
{Havana, January 1, 1899.) 

Three Jackies went rowing far out in the bay, 
Far out in the bay when the sun was high ; 

And those laddies — they did a deed that day 

Which should make them beloved forever and aye. 

For they placed our flag on the wave- washed wreck, 
On the wave-washed wreck of the storied Maine ; 

Those Jackies, they climbed on the rocking deck 
To flaunt that flag in the face of Spain. 

They swung it high over davit and beams, 

Over davit and beams for the love of her name, 

And for love of the lads, who from sleep and dreams. 
Went to dreamless sleep and unconscious fame. 

And it waved beneath the Morro's height, 

The Morro's height in Havana bay; 
Not a Spaniard looked on the daring sight, 

But thought of another winter's day; 

Of a salient day not a year agone, 
Not a year agone, but oh ! for the change ! 

A kingdom lost and a nation born. 
And Columbia's flag with an ocean range. 

Then ho ! for the lads who rowed out in the bay, 
Eowed out in the bay with the stripes and stars; 

Bless God for the thought in their hearts that day, 
The brave true hearts of the jolly tars. 



[189] 
Lexington Day, 1905^ 

On the hundred and thirtieth Lexington day, 

What can there remain for a daughter to say 

Not already said for a score of times 

In loftiest epic or lyrical rimes? 

From the year seventy-five to the year eighty-three 

We have sung every deed that helped make us free. 

From the Puritan fathers who climbed Plymouth rocks 

And the deified women who mended their socks, 

To the squire's cocked hat and our grandmothers' stays, 

We've told all we know of colonial days. 

We 've sung the wild ride of the young Paul Revere, 
And the famous doings of Boston town; 
For the Lexington dead we have dropped the tear ; 
We 've clambered old Bunker Hill up and down ; 
In feathers and paint we have made our salt tea ; 
British Stamps have bestrewed the Atlantic shore ; 
Connecticut's charter we've hid in the tree, 
Proclamations of freedom we've made by the score. 
The Delaware crossing has not lacked its fame; 
Valley Forge has become as a sacred name. 
We 've toasted the mothers who loaded the guns 
And then wove the homespun for husbands and sons ; 
WTiile of Betty's red petticoat cut into flags, 
Even now every feminine one of us brags. 
From Georgia to Maine of the battles we've gained. 
To make modest mention, we've never refrained. 
In short, Young Liberty's torches and caps 
We've painted all over the country's new maps. 

In the North and the South we have found our great men 
And called them by name till the world should hear ; 



*Read before the Daughters of the American Revolution, 
Sequoia Chapter. 



[190] 



We've sorted them out with discriminate pen 
From Washington down to the last volunteer, 
Not forgetting the heroes from over the sea, 
Whose banners bore eagles and French fleur de lis. 

In our ancestors' homely life we have shared, 

And their foibles, too, we never have spared ; 

Those Puritan whims we 've delighted to tease, 

Aye, the penalties dire for a Sunday kiss; 

In a climate where everything else would freeze 

They thought to forbid this tropical bliss. 

With sly little thrusts we 've made them our game. 

Note that wooer by proxy, — Miles Standish by name. 

The sins of our fathers, we've dragged to the light, 

But with filial devotion we 've made them our own ; 

We claim all their valor, but shirk not the sight 

Of pillories, burnings, and casting a stone. 

To their times we maintain that their errors were due. 

That their virtues were many, their faults were but few ; 

Though we shrink from some facts of our country's 

rough youth. 
We propose to accept the historical truth. 

Thus the good and the bad, in loving refrain 
We have sung to the world again and again, 
So what is there left for us now to rehearse 
But back to return by the way that we came. 
And in rhythmical prose or prosaical verse 
To vary our song though the theme be the same. 

So from Yorktown back to the first of the days 
In the year seventy-five on April nineteen. 
When the people stood at the parting of ways, 



[191 



And made their choice on the village green, 
Each year let us tell, like the sacred beads 
On a rosary great as the nation's name, 
The string of all those glittering deeds 
Well worthy to shine in a nation's fame. 

Then here's to the day, the beginning of power, 
Wlien the choice was made which gave us the dower 
Of our right to be free, by the eight lives sealed. 
By the hearts ' hot blood on Lexington field. 
And here 's to the six-score years and ten 
Of a nation's life which have passed since then; 
And here's to the future our children must brave, 
A problem as great as their fathers e'er knew,— 
This land, from prosperity's dangers to save; 
A debt to their vast inheritance due. 
So here's to our sires, our sons and our land. 
And here's to the power, which today we wield! 
May our fathers ' God be the might of our hand, 
To our sons may He be their buckler and shield ! 



[192] 

The Glory of "The White Man's Burden 

{With ackrwwledgments to Rudyard Kipling.) 

Aye, take *'The White Man's Burden,'' 

And glory in the place 
Mutations of strange peoples 

Have thrust upon your race. 
Reck not the price it costs you, 

Though it be the ''best ye breed," 
For Freedom is no phantasm. 

Nor Liberty mere creed. 

Strong in your might of master, 

Strong in your brawn and pride, 
Ye have the hand unflinching 

**In patience to abide." 
Cleave prison walls of darkness. 

The former centuries' dower; 
Let in the light of knowledge. 

Though blows seem cruel power. 

Despair not of the burden ; 

God's prophet felt the stress. 
The murmurs of weak Israel 

Still in the wilderness. 
The promised land's true blessing 

Those ''fluttered folk" shall know, 
When they behold their country 

To nobler measure grow. 



Accept "The White Man's Burden' 
As duty's master-stroke; 

The freeman's high ideal 

"Your weariness shall cloak." 



193 



And future j^ears shall show it 
To those who give you jeers, 

There is a verdict higher 

Than ' ' The judgment of your peers. ' ' 

Rich generations gave you 

The brain to think and plan ; 
Grudge not the asons' blessings 

To this ' ' child-devil" man. 
Hold fast ''The White Man's Burden," 

Though grudged the patriot's meed; 
For Freedom is no phantasm, 

Nor Liberty mere creed. 



194 



Victoria Regina 

The earth is full of tears. ' ' The Queen is dead ! ' ' 
Ye men, with crepe upon your king's array, 
Why make ye pageant over weary clay? 

If ye have loved her, do the things she said. 

She rests from strifes which broke her heart at last; 
That heart — in love with peace — stunned by the roar 
Which crashed upon the Imperial Island 's shore ; 

She sees God 's purpose now, with view more vast. 

Sing hallelujah ! Let the requiems cease ! 
As angels are, all young of form and fair. 
So she, to-day; half wondering to be where 

War blazons not, and life abides in peace. 

Tear off the purple bands! Cast them away! 

Hushed is love's parting sob — the years refrain. 

She who was widowed, walks in white again ; 
Stain not with grief your Lady's nuptial day. 

Ye passing bells, a Jubilate ring! 

Sound, bugles, sound! Ye heralds, cry the hour! 

Your Queen approaches now the Gracious Power, 
Received into the Presence of The King. 



[195] 

Labor, the Prophet 

I am grim Labor, I who boldly stand 

And over God's brown acres raise my hand. 

Tyrants, ye heard the marching of my feet 

Down through all time towards the oppressor's seat; 

Ye tremble when before your face I raise 

My hands all grimy with the forge's blaze. 

My heralds shout upon the hills afar; 

The firmament is shaken by the star 

Of despots hurled from heaven into the sea. 

No longer shall the winds of vengeance be 

Held back by angels lest they hurt the earth; 

The vials are full, — the hour is come to birth. 

Masters, ye shudder at the nearing roar 
Of angry waves that break upon your shore. 
Each drop of that tumultuous sea is mine. 
Behold, that sea reflects the face divine! 
The people are the sea; athwart your path 
They surge before God's tidal breath of wrath. 

Across the raging of the storm I hear 
The angels of the new life coming near; 
Their trumpets sound above the tempest's roar: 
''The toilers' bands are loosed f orevermore. " 
And I, grim Labor, I shall wear the crown 
Which kings and priests in terror will cast down 



[196] 

The Spirit to the Spoilers 

Spoilers of men, beware the dawning hour; 
Heed ye the shapes that haunt your dreams of power. 
The ghosts of centuries of wrong arise, 
Their oriflammes of death before your eyes. 
They point with ghastly fingers to your brows of Cain ; 
They cry, '* Behold the earth-encumbering heaps of 
slain. ' ' 

And who are these ? These dead that gape unto the skies ? 
Was here a battle where men stood with equal chance, — 
Fell face to face, each man, his effort like a lance 
Full set to do its honest worst unto his foe? 
See ye the helmet and the sword receive the blow, 
When each one strives alike to wreck or save a life? 
See ye the weapons of an honorable strife? 

Ye traffic princes, monarchs of red gold. 
Beware the fate of kings of old. 
For ye are one with them in sceptred power ; 
Forget not years have brought the toilers' hour. 
The centuries accuse ye. But a new one springs 
From God with promise on its wings ! 

Go haste to loose your brothers' bands before 
The sounds of woe are heard within your door. 
The angel of a waiting vengeance stands. 
The golden censer in his lifted hands ; 
It smokes with fire from off the altar ta'en 
Where ye have cast atoning gems in vain. 
Haste, haste; he flings the censer to the floor 
Of earth; he swears your time shall be no more. 



The Jongleur's Pranks 



[From ''Francisca Reina and Other Poems ' 
A. M. Robertson, San Francisco 
1912] 



[199] 
Yankee Doodle Up to Date' 



Old Spain took Cuba by the hair 
And fearfully abused her; 
Said Uncle Sam, "Hold on, my Dons, 
Too long you have misused her." 

Yankee Doodle help her out, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
**As friendly neighbors don't you think 
Free Cubans would be handy?" 

When Dons blew up the Yankee Maine, 
Said Uncle Sam, ''I swear it. 
My boys shall clear that Spanish main; 
Let him object who dare it." 

Yankee Doodle, seize their ships, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
** Before our reckoning's done they'll find 
It is no school-boy pandy." 

II 

Then arm in arm, our Uncle sailed 
With Dewey round Manila, 
Said he, "Now, Dewey, tell me where 
Is Spain's renowned flotilla?" 

Yankee Doodle, shell'em out, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
"You sunk 'em? sho! you must have found 
That harbor bottom handy." 



•Written to be sung at entertainments given in the camps 
of volunteers around San Francisco. The boys in blue joined 
in the chorus, which accounts for the frequent refrain. Written 
piecemeal as the war progressed. 



200] 



Said he, "Now, Dewey, keep your hold 
"While I run home a minute, 
I'll send you loads of soldier boys, 
They're dyin' to be in it." 

Yankee Doodle hurry up, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
*'For Dons and Aguinaldo's tribes 
My blue coats will come handy." 

Ill 

Then Schley went hunting Spanish ships 
Around that ocean-lodgin ' ; 
Said Uncle then, ''I think you'll find 
Them occupied in dodgin'!" 

Yankee Doodle hunt them out, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy; 
"They'll bob up here and bob up there, 
At bobbin' they are handy." 

"We bottled up Cervera's fleet," 
Said Uncle Sam to Hobson, 
"We'll find a higher place for you; 
You've done a clever job. Son." 

Yankee Doodle sink the ship, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
"For shutting up the harbor mouth 
The Merrimac proved handy. ' ' 

Said Sampson to the Spanish Don, 
"Why don't you come and fight. Sir?" 
"Caramba," said that high Sefior, 
"You've shut me up too tight. Sir." 



[201] 



Yankee Doodle fire away, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
''We'll stop the guns and hold the fort, 
No more brave words we'll bandy." 

When shot were the Virginius' men, 
'Twas Santiago did it; 
Our boys have settled that old score 
Just with the town that bid it. 

Yankee Doodle pay your debts, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
At Caney and at San Juan ridge. 
Rough Rider lads were handy. 

IV 

When Miles to Porto Rico went, 
He climbed right up and took it; 
The natives cried, "Dear Uncle Sam, 
We're good, though we don't look it." 

Yankee Doodle — what a brood ! 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
Said Uncle Sam, "These new possess 
Look just like 'lasses candy." 

Then he from Porto Rican hills 
Reviewed the situation; 
He frowned and puzzled on the job 
Of foreign occupation. 

Yankee Doodle thought a while, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
Said he, all pensive-like and bland, 
And stroked his chin so handy. 



[202] 



**I hear that sweets are not held good 
For Uncle Sam's digestion; 
You're wrong, my boys, you'll see me thrive 
On that Hawaiian question." 

Yankee Doodle hoist the flag, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
*'Now don't forget, your Uncle Sam 
Is fond of sugar candy." 

*'Now Dewey's finished up the job, 
Just what he undertook to ; 
I think I'll put him at the head, 
He's pretty safe to hook to." 

Yankee Doodle keep your grip, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
* * We won 't go back on Dewey 's prize ; 
My Dewey is a dandy." 

**Now Miles," said he, "Let's count 'em up; 
Here 's Cuba 'n Porto Rico ; 
Hawaii in the other pond, 
Ladrones and Philippino." 

Yankee Doodle keep your head, 

Yankee Doodle Dandy, 
**For stepping stones around the world. 
Those islands will come handy. ' ' 



[203] 

Unc' Rastus to Marse Dewey 

My Dear Mars Dewey : We sutney is please 

Ter heah yo's aridin' de hom'ard seas, 

But I laid off ter give yo ' a wud in yer year, 

Fer I's feared yo's gwine ter hev trouble right here. 

'Twas jes' ter say dis — when yo' comes f'm de Souf, 
Wharev'r yo' goes, don't open yer mouf, 
Fer talkin' too much's ben de cuss an' de bane 
0' de heroes what comes f'm de conq'rin' o' Spain. 

Dey tole secret t'ings Marse Kaiser denied, 
With strong sinervations dat somebody lied; 
Dey writ de long letters chuck full o' advice, 
'Bout pussons in hammocks what et up de ice; 
'Bout de quarters an' rations — dat "roun '-robin" 
game. 

Den de dinners! Lord! de battles o' Spain 

Wan 't a circumstance 't all when 't come ter champagne ; 

De fumes was wus dan de smell o' de powder, 

An' dat big twel'-inch, he don' talk no louder; 

Dar's all kin' o' enemies hid in dat wine, 

Dey's thicker dan guns in de firin' line. 

So twar quoilin' an' fussin' in 'spisable ways. 

All aimin' ter git de bulk o' de praise 

Away f'm de turr, like dey's chickens dat foun' 

Dar wou'n't be wurrum ernuff ter go roun'. 

But spite o' it all we hed a gre't fight, 

Dis country, she's leadin' ter lef an' ter right; 

Hit don't mek no diffence on' Ian' er on sea, 

Dat's a sho' 'nuff fac' when yo' b 'longs ter de free; 

De blue er de gray, de black er de white, 

Dey's all kin-folks when Ole Glory's in sight. 



204 



If I's brash in persumin' ter speak out so bole, 
It's 'case I's preacher an' toler'ble ole, 
But we sees right smart' hin' de gent 'men's chairs, 
An' I jes 'lowed ter give yo' a hint ter bewares. 

Dey '11 mek percessions ter tote yo ' roun ' 

Wid jubilee fixin's in ebery town, 

Twel de row's es loud es a big camp meetin', 

An' yo's natchelly 'bleeged ter git shet o' dat treatin'. 

I tek noticement how yo's refused so far, 

But sometime de home-comin's de tug-o '-de-war. 

So don 't tek no 'f ense at de 'marks o ' a friend 

Wot's bragged on yer doin's f 'm b'ginnin' ter end; 

Yo's leadin' de row, yo's top o' de pot, 

Yo's de onliest Admur'l we all's got, 

An' we wants yo' ter stay at de head o' de winners. 

Dat's huccome we say: "Fight shy o' dem dinners." 

So dear Marse George, when yo' comes f 'm de Souf, 

Wharev'r yo' goes, don't open yer mouf, 

Fer talkin' too much's ben de cuss an' de bane 

O' de heroes what comes f'm de conq'rin' o' Spain. 



[205] 

The Lady Reconciled 

A lady and a tiger held 

The birthright of an ancient fued; 
Said he, "Pray let our wrath be quelled; 

Fair dame, I fear I've been too rude. 

"In future peace let us abide; 

In pledge, let's forth our friends to greet; 
Behold my shining, fulvous hide; 

You'll find my back a pleasant seat." 

When they came back from that rash ride, 
The tiger wore his blandest smile. 

Quoth he, "The lady rides inside; 
'Tis thus our foes we reconcile. ' ' 

If Science offer subtle schemes. 

My faith, be not too soon beguiled; 

Strange friendships may be tempting dreams ; 
Beware the lady reconciled. 



[206] 
An Old Bachelor 

O love is a jade of a wayward life; 

Sometimes she is gone at the whiff of a breath; 
Again she survives the most savage strife; 

Then often she scoffs in the face of death. 

Sometimes she will fight at the drop of the hat ; 

And then she will take your cuffs and blows 
As tame as a household tabby-cat, 

And likes to be led by a string in her nose. 

Sometimes at the turn of hand, she is dead; 

Again at your tears she will laughingly flout. 
She *s enough to drive a man out of his head ; 

As for me, I will not have the creature about. 



[207] 
A Spinster 

Why have you come, O love, so near, 

Come but to pass me by? 
I sought you not, but found you here; 

Turn hence your trifling eye. 

And in your vagrant wandering, 

Pray take some other path ; 
Your talk — it is but maundering 

To rouse contempt and ^vrath. 

Forever on some changing quest, 
With manners quite too gay. 

You are a fickle-minded guest. 

What's that? You've come to stay? 

I don't believe a word you say; 

You said the same another day; 
I know your tricks : go way ; go way ; 

Whenever did you come to stay? 



[208] 

My Soul and I 

''Why don't I die and set you free?" 
You saucy Soul, don't talk to me; 
I am not half so old as you 
Who saw the Pharoah beat the Jew. 

You helped to build a pyramid; 
Once in a Brahmin you were hid; 
I know because you whispered me 
How sweet the Hindoo maids could be. 

For Babylon you sometimes weep 
When I am tossing in my sleep; 
If of Iran I make a verse, 
You Zoroaster's lines rehearse. 

Please don't forget that Chinese queue, 
Though worn upon a throne 'tis true; 
And next, as one of Canton's girls. 
You made the tea for sampan churls. 

You were a Turkish red-fez man, 
You babble still of Hafed's khan; 
I stood within blind Nydia's door; 
Quoth you, "I've seen this house before. 

When the old Britons placed the rood. 
You with the ensigned Romans stood; 
Though you became her queen by right, 
I found you worn and weary quite. 

You've been worse off; more civil speak. 
Since you are such a varied freak. 
I have not kept you near so long 
As that black slave of Intermong. 



209 



You've tried the old world's worst and best, 
And thought it better to come west : 
Then you were very glad to find 
My infant form just to your mind. 

The west has set the whole world-pace; 
You're still in time to join the race: 
A new sensation you will note, 
You soon will cast a woman's vote. 



[210] 

A Grizzly in the Zoo 

A shame to your kin, you good-natured bear, 

You show no regrets for your lost mountain lair. 

At play in the cage of your traveling zoo 

With the child who throws peanuts and apples at you! 

The lion is wroth and the tiger is sly, 
But you eat, and twinkle your small black eye ; 
From the top of your pole you look down as if man 
Were a brother who does what a brother can. 

Do you never dream of Sierra's height 
Where your comrades hunt on the trail all night? 
Do you think such hide and muscles were meant 
To accept a pampered and slavish content? 

Resistance that fails is better by far 
Than submission that fondles its cage and its bar. 
Break some fetter that binds; go tear up the earth, 
And show yourself worthy your savage birth. 

The tiger's snarl and the lion's roar, 
That pierce unavailing their iron door, 
Less ignoble seem than the pitiful play 
Of the mighty paw that was meant to slay. 



[211] 

A Bilious Day 

One day I stalked, when Fate had balked 

And things were in a fix, 
With broAVS of gloom and thoughts of the tomb, 

On the shores of the river Styx. 

''I'm dead," said I; ''No more I'll try 

This hateful race to win; 
So Charon, dear, your boat bring here 

And kindly take me in." 

Contemptuously he said to me, 

With eyes askance the while, 
''A healthy ghost! Back to your post, 

A potion take for bile." 

The advice was good and it has stood 

The test of many a friend; 
And so for you when you are blue, 

The same I'll recommend. 



[212] 

Triolet 

How dared he do it, 
To kiss those girls! 
But he will rue it ; 
How dared he do it ! 
Fate led him to it 
With smiles and curls; 
How dared he do it, 
To kiss those girls ! 



[213] 

Rondeau 

O Jack, don't tease me every day, 
Go talk to Grace or Nell or May; 
Why, every time I tell you nay, 
It only makes you still more bold. 
As if you never had been told. 

Dear heart! That little word I pray,- 
The word which never can grow old. 
Makes darkness bright and sorrow gay. 
For which a world is gladly sold. 

That little word, "1 love. 

That word is but an idle play, 

Or else another name for gold. 

The changes on that word you've rolled 

Till tired of being so cajoled; 

I've only one thing left to say, — 

That little word, "I love." 



[214] 

Why? 

What makes you ask Dan Cupid "Why? 
And what did you get for a saucy reply 
But another arrow straight in the eye ? 
So never ask the little god ''Why?" 
For Love never knows the reason why. 



[215] 
The Discarded Lover 

love is illusion and passion a snare; 

Of the promise they make you, beware, beware ; 

They'll put up a job to break your heart; 

If you would have peace, with them you must part. 



[216] 

The Mess of It 

The gods made a sorry old mess of it — 
The results we can't even guess of it — 
When the caldron they mixed for the young world's 

youth ; 
The joy and the sorrow they cast indiscriminate, 
The false from the true they did not eliminate, 
But left man to add love as the test of the truth. 



[217] 
Progressive Love 

Who says that a second is not as good? 

That a third should never be had? 
Let him try a fourth in an Alpine hood ; 

And a fifth is not half bad. 

Then here's to the latest; there'll be no last, 
Till Death cries ''Ho, you're mine;" 

Love's eternal youth has no future or past, 
And its present is fire divine. 



[218] 

The Call of Science 

He Speaks: 

''My girl," quoth he/ 'I feel each cell 
Of all my being towards you swell; 
These cells, you know, make up the tissue 
That vibrates with each latest issue. 

"That vital energy which fills 

These cells, gives strange and wondrous thrills; 

This energy is said to be 

The substance of the graces three. 

' * This energy — life universal 
Condensed from nothing — has rehearsal 
In concrete lives, by heat electric, 
In waves invisible but hectic. 

*'That your vibrations harmonize 
With mine, I read in violet eyes; 
Color and light are nature's rhythm; 
Sphere-music old is scarcely with 'em. 

"To think, your atoms charged have whirled 
Through space until the insensate world. 
Condensed, such treasure could receive! 
^ons lost we can't retrieve! 

* ' And only now I find you here ; 
So young, so old, so ever dear ; 
But still I always felt you coming, 
Through galaxies of stars a-humming." 



219 



She Speaks: 

''Yes, dear, I've had my share of trouble, 
Working through world-dust full of rubble; 
'Gainst Mars and many moons a-bumping; 
At last upon this globe down-plumping. 

** Through all I felt your vital force 
That drew me to its nearing source ; 
I knew this involuting notion, 
Condensed by vibratory motion, 

''Concentrates in the heart's fine cells 
Till they become emotion's wells. 
Then evolution's working power 
Develops lives of perfect flower. 

'*Our lives concentric thus shall fill 
Thought-pulses of the rhythmic will. ' ' 
He caught her in his arms' vibrations. 
All wrapped in tangled concentrations, 

Like wires in spiral circles bound; 
Then, lines of least resistance found, 
In scarlet lips evolved the blisses 
Of true magno-electric kisses. 

Rejoice, Dan Cupid! you're not in it. 
For science changes everj^ minute; 
Nature unwound her spiral force; 
Currents reversed for their divorce. 



[220] 

Psychology Five 

Adapted from the French of Baunis 

*^ Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean. 
Tears from the depths of some divine despair," 

Alfred Tennyson. 

No more of despair you poets; 

We are farther than that today. 
Your tears do but flush the nerve-centers 

And wash the debris away. 

When you're hurt in the heart as you call it, 

The vessels engorge with blood, 
And the nerves make a poison deposit 

Which is carried away by the flood 

Of tears, which lovers and poets 
Have wrought into idyls of song; 

But these tears as peripheral action 
To Psychology Five belong. 



>> 



And your tears no longer are **idle" 
They're a part of economy's wealth; 

*'This stock-theme of lyrics," says science, 
**Only means sanitation and health." 



[221] 

To College Girls 

The college girls of a former day 
Were earnest, sweet, demure and prim; 
Calisthenics mild was their wildest fray, 
While to mission strands they sang their way 
With many a gospel hymn. 

They wore no golf-skirts trimmed in red, 
Nor did they twang the archer 's bow ; 
Butler and logic were daily bread. 
And their manners left us naught to dread; 
Those girls of long ago. 

But the modern girl! Alas for the hour 
Which rigged her out in togs of state; 
Wliich gave her gladiatorial power. 
With equal suffrage as her dower; 
This maid that's up to date! 

The rostrum waits on her rosy lip 
And the baton knows her practised hand ; 
While her arguments for man's comradeship 
Make many a rash opponent trip ; 

This girl that holds the land! 

She's taller than her brothers are. 
And swings along with a noble gait; 
She beats them over the vaulting bar ; 
In running and swimming, she leaves them afar ; 
This last "Try-out" of fate. 



222 



But the blood throbs warm in the lifted chest, 
Whatever her trend to the passing show; 
And as long as her gowns are the tailor's best, 
We know that a feminine heart's in the breast 
As surely as long ago. 

But the world shall be glad for the new as the old, 
And hearth-stones as bright as they were of yore ; 
For love flutters alike 'neath the kerchief's fold 
Or the sweater that 's lettered in blue or gold ; 
So a toast to the girls both new and old, 
Of today and the years before ! 



[223] 
A Pre- Adamite on Evolution 

An aged king of gorillas sat 

By the side of his wrinkled spouse; 

Beneath a drooping banana tree 
They renewed his birthday vows. 

Quoth he, while a bunch of the fruit he plucked 

To lay at her royal feet; 
' ' To burden this day with forebodings of state, 

I know that it is not meet; 

"But my heart is sore for the future youth, 

For our tribe and the very race. 
A nation's weakness approaches fast 

In the changes of form and face. 

*'0f seven full generations now 

Patriarchal chief am I. 
Not a son has the strength his father had; 

They carry their heads too high. 

''There goes our cousin Chimpanzee, the knave; 

Ignominious shelter he makes, 
To hide himself from the foe and the storm, 

With a shelter of brushes and brakes. 

* * degenerate sons of the future gorilla, 
Can you hurl great rocks at the foe; 

Can you lash them with trees? Can you frighten 
the beasts 
With a voice they have learned to know?" 



224 



And he beat his great breast with concussion 
profound, 
At his people's evolving disgrace; 
But his queen held her peace till his wrath should 
abate ; 
This dame knew her proper place. 

**Does my lord forget," she ventured at last, 

*'When he came a-courting of me, 
That I was more fair than my mother had been,- 

He deemed it most good to see? 

**And the fathers find nothing more worthy today 

In the stories of ancient wives. 
Than the deed of a modern gorilla maid 

Whose tact saved a hundred lives. 

*'Has your highness a stride less majestic and firm 
Than his sires who went on all four? 

And we lack not the berries and betel nuts 
Though we swing in the tree tops no more. 

* ' And recall how our foes have been vanquished 
By the traps our children designed; 

Perhaps Nature may reach compensation at last 
In a race of a subtler mind." 

But he shook his grey head in a muttering storm : 

"Such degeneration will bring 
The noble race of Gorillas ere long 

To a pale-faced naked thing. 



[225] 



''A creature so weak and enfeebled he'll be 

That in two generations he's old; 
His short arms may drop off altogether, I fear, 

Like the tails of which we are told, 

*'A weakling, short-armed and bald-headed 
forsooth ! 
Afraid of the cold and the heat! 
When the mermaids at twilight are singing their 
psalms, 
He'll do for the shore's front seat. 

*'Ha! The females of that generation!" he roared 

Again, as if struck with new woes: 
**Will they stalk through the forest, unblushing 
and bold? 

Who'll marry such creatures as those!" 

** Perhaps," said his listening target again, 

*' Those fair Gorillitas might twine 
For their shivering bodies some cover of grace 

With the leaves of the clinging vine. 

"And then there's the plantain, and fig leaf so 
broad. 

And the frond-bordered fern and the brake." 
Thus early did instincts Parisian appear 

The masculine scorn to awake. 

"A female in plantains and fig leaves beswaddled. 
And tied round with twisted sticks!" 

Sneered her lord. ''Have you, my dear Madam, 
I pray, 
Been trying such ladylike tricks? 



[226 



"My tribe in banana leaves bandaged and hid, 
Whose arms scarce hold their own weight, 

And sleeping in shelter of rushes and ferns, — 
Call you this a higher estate? 

"Don't tell me of better conditions again; 

I'm sick of this twaddle, quite! 
I say if this fad of evolving goes on 

Our race will be out of sight. ' ' 

He had asked for his lady 's opinion, 'tis true ; 

Then scornfully threw it away ; 
But the world has evolved to such blessed estate, 

That the male never does so to-day. 

But this king, undeveloped and crude of mind. 

Into fury had lashed his wrath ; 
And he crashed through the forest despoiling at 
will 

Every helpless thing in his path. 

His queen, whose inherited kingdom he ruled. 
To the shade of their household tree. 

On her back bore the nuts and banana-branch ; 
Nor dreamed that her kind could be free. 



[227] 

Concerning Hoes 

You have heard of that over-worked man with the hoe, 
"Whom lords and rulers conspire to rob; 
Who's supposed to concentrate all human woe 
And stand to the world, for the lot, in one job. 

This idealized victim of possible wrong ! 

Perhaps his griefs are humanity 's fad ; 

A good hoe is a theme for ethical song; 

At an every day hoe, the heart should be glad. 

From the Labor Prince with his sceptre-spade. 

To the man who can claim the LL.D., 

This life has a hoe for every grade. 

And it means — hard work as the right to be. 

**And now for my hoe," the actor-man said. 

As he took up his cue with grimace or frown. 

Quoth the author, ' ' This thought that 's buzzing my head 

Will prove a good hoe to get bread and renown." 

' ' That hoe-man of song found an easy fame, ' ' 
Sighed the lawyer pressed with his clients' sins, 
'^Compared to the man who would gain a name 
Where 'tis money rather than merit that wins." 

As the miner shouldered his pick and pan 
He thought of the hoe-song he heard one day. 
And he grumbled, ' ' He hain 't got it all, that man. 
He never mushed out on a tundra lay." 

The emperor said to his friend, the king, 
''Old chap, these sceptres used to be ours; 
But these hoe-men are getting inside the ring, 
We'd better accept them as Allied Powers." 



228 ] 



Thus the thought had dawned, and the earth rejoiced, 
That the ox and his brother were not alone, 
And only that man had a woe to be voiced 
Who did not possess a hoe of his own. 

So hoe-men we are, both great and small, 
If we rule or serve or buy or sell. 
And the world demands but this thing of us all. 
Whenever we hoe be sure to hoe well. 

L 'Envoi 
Then, comrades, your hoes! to your hoes and to work! 
For the fields are broad and brief are the years ; 
And Nature has made no place for a shirk. 
Nor ripens life's harvest with penitent tears. 



H 18 89. ^i 







« -Qp 










<fe. -T^rs Ay <^ ';?^o' ,^o 







«. '••'" <v 






V*^ 



0* •!•»' "^P*' 



5^. 






40,. .. 



.^ ^""^^^ ^'^m: .^^^- -J 



V ...^\*:I^*A^ .^^^:k•i^/^.. .^''.!i;^*>. 












• ^. 










1* ..".♦. V 4,4*. »- 









* \/'Wy v^^v-* \:W'/ 
















• _4 o. 












'*/ -o. 







.0 -V * 














^"--<X /.^^^% ,/\.^^.\ <p\^ 





«5> ^^ «i 











I* .."•» *e 





J 4pvV -Hi 














'^P<?' 



<> *'T: 








